Ch 19 · Lesson 9Esperanto · Chapter 19 · Lesson 9 · Grammar primer
Affixes that are also words: ilo, aro, eta
Give an affix an ending and it is a word: is a tool, a group, to cause. Affixes even stack with no root at all: , o.
The short version
Most affixes are also words
.
Why?Hide
Give an affix an ending and it works like any root: is a tool, a group, a member, a boss, slight, to cause, to become. Affixes can even take affixes, so (a toolkit) and o (a possibility) have no root in them at all. That is why a long word holds nothing but words you can look up.
Most Esperanto affixes are words in their own right: give -- an ending and you have , a tool. So a long word holds nothing but words. Two traps sit at the edges: some prefix-like pieces are ordinary roots (-, -), and some words only look built ().
| Piece | As a word | English |
|---|---|---|
-- | | a tool |
-- | | a group, a set |
-- | | slight, small |
-- | | to cause, to make |
- | | vice-president () |
| looks built | | a mistake: one root |
Affixes standing alone
Put an ending on an affix and it behaves like any root. Dictionaries list these as words; some are everyday vocabulary, some rarer:
| Affix | Word | English |
|---|---|---|
-- | | a tool |
-- | | a group, a set |
-- | | a member |
-- | | an offspring |
-- | | a head, a boss |
-- | | a person, a guy |
-- | | a bit, a particle |
-- | | a quality |
-- | | slight, small |
-- | | huge |
-- | | possible |
-- | | to cause, to make |
-- | | to become |
- | | on the contrary |
a tool
a group
small
They work in sentences like any other word:
.- I need the right tool..- That made me think..- It suddenly turned cold..- That is not possible., !- On the contrary, I like it!
Not every affix makes a useful word: the pet-name suffixes -- and -- are almost never seen alone. The common ones are plain vocabulary, the kind you will write this week.
Affixes on affixes
An affix used as a word takes affixes like any root, so a word can be built with no root in it at all:
| Word | Pieces | English |
|---|---|---|
| -- + -- | a toolkit |
| -- + -- | a possibility |
| -- + -- | a board, a committee |
| -- + -- | the membership |
o.- There is only one possibility.
This is the promise behind reading a long word from the right: every piece is a word you can look up. is not, healthy, person, place: a hospital.
Going further: Roots doing affix work and the rest of the guide, when you want them. This lesson does not need them.
Practice
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