Affix

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a base morpheme such as a root or to a stem, to form a word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed.

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Affixes are divided into several types, depending on their position with reference to the root: prefixes (attached before another morpheme), suffixes (attached after another morpheme), infixes (inserted within another morpheme), circumfixes (attached before and after another morpheme or set of morphemes), or suprafixes (attached suprasegmentally to another morpheme). Affixes are bound morphemes by definition. Prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes.

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There also has been a proposal of a somewhat different type of affix, a disfix, which subtracts phonological segments from bases.

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Affixes are central to the process of concatenation.

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1 English infixes only exist in exclamatory constructions like the given example.

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2 There are only two words in the english language said to use circumfixes. Embolden and Enlighten.

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Morpheme: In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest language unit that carries a semantic interpretation. Morphemes are, generally, a distinctive collocation of phonemes (as the free form pin or the bound form -s of pins) having no smaller meaningful members....

Root: :For other meanings of root, see Root (disambiguation)....

Stem: In common parlance, a stem is any elongated, usually narrow, extension or supporting structure of an object. Examples are the stem of a smoking pipe, stem of a cut flower, stem of a wine glass, etc. Uses of the term specific to certain fields are as follow:...