Re: affixes

Hi!

From: Scotto Hlad <scotto@...>
>
>I'm looking for some lists of very affixes to help me develop nouns for my
>new conlang. Does anyone know of any lists of affixes that might designate
>different forms of nouns?
>
>eg.
>stem + affix1 = a tool
>stem + affix2 = a place.
>
>I'm looking for the categories that the affixes would designate.
>Any direction would be helpful.
>Scotto
I'm using the Greenlandic ('Kalaallisut', Inuit-Aleutic language) approach
to derive these in my conlang Qthyn|gai, e.g.:

   atuaq-   - stem of 'to write'
   -vik     - 'place of _'

   atuaffik - 'school': lexicalised as the specialisation of
              the regularly derived meaning 'place where writing
              takes place'

Unfortunately, without a book, I cannot come up easily with more
examples...  I'm sure the tool for writing, ie, 'a pen' is constructed
accordingly.

With just this one example, this might looks like normal compounding,
but it isn't: it is not ad-hoc: Greenlandic has very strict affixation
rules for the construction of the meaning of the result.  And '-vik'
is a suffix, not a normal stem.  (The normal word for 'place' might be
related, but is a different category.)  A long word is a strictly
left-branching, predictable derivation.  (E.g. there are no ad-hoc
compounds like Chinese 'father-mother' = 'parents'.)  Greenlandic is
interesting in that the class of derivational affixes is open, which
means that lexicons list the affixes, too, and that new ones may
easily emerge.  The mechanism of derivation is used extensively: using
only about 1500 base words + 500 affixes, the full lexicon of the
language is filled with the 'normal' amount of several thousand
derived words.

So if you want a *really* rich system of derivation in your conlang,
have a look at Kalaallisut: of the Inuit languages, it is said to have
the most complex derivation system which has adjusted to the exposure
to new cultural ideas in recent history by pushing the derivational
system to its extreme.  A lexicon (not too easy to get) will list *a
lot* of affixes that might inspire you. :-)

**Henrik

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