2714: Comparing Asleep and On Fleek May 26
There is a prefix a-, found in many verbs, that carries meanings related to away, up, on, or out, as in ‘arise’, ‘awake’ or not as a verb in ‘afoot’ or ‘aside’, but is probably more typically used for conditions of something ongoing, like ‘aglow’, ‘asleep’, and ‘asunder’. This originates from the word ‘on’ and functions similarly as verbs with the on-prefix. It can be used in some other ways too, but the prefix is generally considered non-productive, which is to say that it is not applied onto words aside from a set list now.
On still does carry the meaning of condition as seen in phrases like ‘on fire’ (compare ablaze) but while it is rare, the prefix a- might still be understood as generative if usually humorous and informal, like “I’m busy a-working”. In the perhaps now outdated slang term of the last decade “on fleek”, or more common “on point” or to have something “on lock”, on has taken on some renewed vigor again in the sense of condition (of). This is not enough to make it productive, it does show that there is some mileage in a conditional-on.
2702: 'Bus' comes from ¾ of a Latin Ending May 14, 2024
When it comes to motor vehicles, lots of words have been abbreviated to form used today, but not in the same ways. The word 'auto' common in many languages is shorted from automobile, but the prefix 'auto-' is common enough and stands on its own as a morpheme at least. In the case of 'bus' however, this is from omnibus which is a Latin word meaning “for all”, as the dative plural form of omnis (“every; all”). In shortening it, not only was the word abbreviated, but it implies the root is made of “omni-” plus “-bus” but the suffix in Latin is “-ibus”, and unlike say “auto + mobile”, “omn(i)-” would anyway not stand on its own, at least not with the same meaning.
Later, words like “autobus” emerged to refer to mechanical omnibusses (no sensible plural would exist using just Latin morphology), but by this point it had lost any originally intended meaning it might have had.
2537: "Change" in Hebrew Root Letters Nov 23, 2021
Broadly speaking, Hebrew uses a system of 3-consonant roots are modified in various ways that change the meaning etc.. It is therefore important to retain these 3 letters as the core of the word, though there are some exceptions. Roots can end with a vowel sound for instance, and that will have certain implications, but sometimes the spelling conventions will change for a less grammatical reason. The for עשאה (ʔasa'ah) meaning 'make it' exists from the root letters ע-ש-ה meaning 'to do' but the א is added only because normally it would be another ה, either of which at the end are silent, usually. In actual fact, the final ה has aspiration in some cases (as is the case here) like the H in the 'house'. To retain the silence of what would be the first ה of עשהה, it is changed to עשאה.
2474: Hebrew's (Potential) Accusative Case Sep 20, 2021
Biblical Hebrew uses the suffix -ה (a-) to indicate motion-towards: a common feature of the accusative case, which otherwise is used to mark direct objects. Hebrew already has a direct object marker for definite nouns—את (es)—but no way to mark indefinite nouns. Historically however, it would seem that this suffix -ה (a-) would have, whether or not the noun was definite. This accusative form was mostly lost with this one lingering use and a few potential vestigial forms in vocabulary, but some have even suggested that on top of that an early variety of Hebrew had a nominative */-u/ ending for subjects, and genitive */-i/ ending for possessives, but there is less evidence here.
2470: Codex & Affix: Why Different Plurals? Sep 16, 2021
The plural of 'index' is 'indices' and likewise with 'codex' to 'codices', but the plural of 'affix' is 'affixes'. This is not in fact inconsistent, but a result of the way in which English borrows words from Latin. In the case of 'codex', this is a Latin word in the 3rd declension which had a Latin plural of 'codices'. Strictly speaking, the plural is simply '-ēs' but the 'x' is assimilated along with the vowel as seen in the rest of the forms including the genitive singular 'cōdicis'. In the case of 'affix', this is formed from the prefix 'ad-' (toward) and 'fixus', which is the participial form of the verb 'figere' meaning 'to fasten', as in 'join together'. Since English generally does not take the 2nd declension '-us-' ending, 'affixus' (the -d- was assimilated) becomes mere 'affix'.
2386: Chinese Morphology Jun 30, 2021
To say that Chinese is morphologically simple is an understatement. There is no verb tense, no voice (e.g. active; passive), and has no form of pluralization. All of these functions which in other languages are typically carried out through morphology are instead reliant on particles which indicates things like aspect and mood. This concept is not so foreign to English, which itself has no future tense, and relies on particles too.
1228: English Right-Hand Rule Apr 20, 2018
There is a reason why negative affixes are going to be prefixes in English is the same reason why derivational affixes such as '-al', '-ness' and '-ate' will be suffixes. English has what is called the "English right-hand rule" which states that usually, the right-most element is the head of the word, and will determine the syntax and or meaning. This is true of most adjectives, compounds where the first element acts almost like an adjective, and affixes. With the latter, negating prefixes such as 'in-', 'un-' and 'non-' all can be attached to adjectives (among other things) and the word will still remain an adjective (or whatever else) whereas the aforementioned suffixes will all make a word of one part of speech become a word of another lexical class. This is the case with most affixes in other Germanic languages as well, though there are a few notable exceptions within each, and is one of many significant reasons why English will not be considered a Romance language despite strong influences from vocabulary.
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