Ĉef-, vic- and eraro: roots that look like affixes

Roots doing affix work

PMEG counts ten official prefixes: bo- ĉef- dis- ek- eks- ge- mal- mis- pra- re-. Many textbooks add fi-, which the Fundamento has only as an exclamation, and ĉef- doubles as an ordinary root (ĉefa, main). Anything else at the front of a word is an ordinary root or small word, which compounding allows for any root:

The same happens at the back. Some roots are so common as the last piece that they feel like suffixes, but they are still roots and behave like them:

• La salono estis homplena. - The hall was crowded.

International endings such as -ologio are not on the official list either: biologio came into Esperanto as a whole word. Unofficial affixes covers where -olog- does and does not work.

Words that only look built

Once you can take words apart, you will try it on words that are not built. The test is the meaning: if the pieces give a meaning the word does not have, the word is one root.

• Mi faris eraron. - I made a mistake.

Kolego only looks built too: it is one root, koleg-, a colleague. Split as kolego it would be a huge neck, which is not what the word means. A dictionary files each word under its own root: eraro under erar-, kolego under koleg-.

Mistakes English speakers make