Affixation

AFFIXATION

Affixation is a morphological process whereby a bound morpheme, an affix, is attached to a morphological base. Diachronically, the English word affix was first used as a verb and has its origin in Latin: affixus, past participle of the verb affigere, ad- ‘to’ + figere ‘to fix’. 

Affixation falls in the scope of Morphology where bound morphemes are either roots or affixes. Prefixes (affixes that precede the root) and suffixes (affixes that follow the root) are the most common types of affixes cross-linguistically. Affixes mark derivational (-er in teach-er) and inflectional (-s in teacher-s) changes, and affixation is the most common strategy that human languages employ for derivation of new words and word forms. However, languages vary in the ways they express the same semantics, and if in English the noun biolog-ist is derived from biology through the addition of the suffix -ist, in Russian (and other Slavic languages) the same derivation does not involve the addition of an affix but subtraction of form: biolog-ija ‘biology’ → biolog ‘biologist’. Affixation is a morphological process whereby a bound morpheme, an affix, is attached to a morphological base. Diachronically, the English word affix was first used as a verb and has its origin in Latin: affixus, past participle of the verb affigere, ad- ‘to’ + figere ‘to fix’. 

Affixation falls in the scope of Morphology where bound morphemes are either roots or affixes. Prefixes (affixes that precede the root) and suffixes (affixes that follow the root) are the most common types of affixes cross-linguistically. Affixes mark derivational (-er in teach-er) and inflectional (-s in teacher-s) changes, and affixation is the most common strategy that human languages employ for derivation of new words and word forms. However, languages vary in the ways they express the same semantics, and if in English the noun biolog-ist is derived from biology through the addition of the suffix -ist, in Russian (and other Slavic languages) the same derivation does not involve the addition of an affix but subtraction of form: biolog-ija ‘biology’ → biolog ‘biologist’. Affixation is a morphological process whereby a bound morpheme, an affix, is attached to a morphological base. Diachronically, the English word affix was first used as a verb and has its origin in Latin: affixus, past participle of the verb affigere, ad- ‘to’ + figere ‘to fix’. 

Affixation falls in the scope of Morphology where bound morphemes are either roots or affixes. Prefixes (affixes that precede the root) and suffixes (affixes that follow the root) are the most common types of affixes cross-linguistically. Affixes mark derivational (-er in teach-er) and inflectional (-s in teacher-s) changes, and affixation is the most common strategy that human languages employ for derivation of new words and word forms. However, languages vary in the ways they express the same semantics, and if in English the noun biolog-ist is derived from biology through the addition of the suffix -ist, in Russian (and other Slavic languages) the same derivation does not involve the addition of an affix but subtraction of form: biolog-ija ‘biology’ → biolog ‘biologist’. 

Most languages make an extensive use of affixes (most European, African, Australian, and Amerindian languages are of this type), whereas others (e.g., Vietnamese), hardly do. In languages that use affixes, there is a general preference for suffixes over prefixes.

In English grammar and morphology, affixation is the process of adding a morpheme — or affix— to a word to create either a different form of that word or a new word with a different meaning; affixation is the most common way of making new words in English. 

The two primary kinds of affixation are prefixation, the addition of a prefix, and suffixation, the addition of a suffix, while clusters of affixes can be used to form  complex words.

A large majority of new words in the English language today are either a result of blending — mashing two words or partial words together to form a new one — or affixation. 

USES OF AFFIXES

Simply put, an affix is a word element of English grammar used to alter the meaning or form of a word and comes in the form of either a prefix or a suffix. Prefixes include examples like "un-" "self-" and "re-" while suffixes come in the form of ending elements like "-hood" "-ing" or "-ed." 

While prefixes typically maintain the word class (noun, verb, adjective, etc) of the word it's modifying, suffixes oftentimes change the form entirely, as is the case with "exploration" compared to "explore" or "highlighter" compared to "highlight." 

Further, one can use multiple iterations of the same affixation to modify a word like grandmother to mean an entirely different person — as in "great-great grandmother," who would be your mother's mother's mother's mother or a "re-re-re-make of a film" wherein this film would be the fourth iteration of its kind.

The same can be applied to different prefixes and suffixes being used on the same word. For instance, the word nation means a country, but national means "of a nation," nationalize means "to make part of a nation," and "denationalization" means "the process of making something no longer part of a nation." This can continue ad nauseam, but becomes increasingly odd — especially in spoken rhetoric — the more affixes one uses them on the same base word.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AFFIXATION AND BLENDING

One form of word alteration and invention that is commonly mistaken for being an example of affixation is the process of blending words to form new ones, most notably present in the example of the marketing term "cranapple," where people naturally assume the root word "cran-" from "cranberry" is being applied as an affix. 

However, affixes must be able to universally be attached to other morphemes and still make sense. This is not the case with the "cran-" root, which is only seen attached to another morpheme in marketing examples of juices that also contain cranberry juice like "crangrape" and "cranapple." Instead of being a stand-alone morpheme which conveys "of cranberry," the suffix "cran-" can only make sense when applied to other juices and is therefore considered a blend of two reduced words (cranberry and apple).

Though some words and prefixes can be both stand-alone morphemes or parts of blended words, meaning the phrases aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, most often words that are products of blending do not contain any actual productive affixes.

Then you will find two videos that will help you to expand your knowledge on the subject.

You can find more information in the next link:

https://www.ajol.info/index.php/afrrev/article/download/41010/8450

REFERENCES:

http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199772810/obo-9780199772810-0183.xml

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-affixation-words-1688976

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZWMwexNv_Q