Esperanto · Chapter 25 · Lesson 14 · Grammar primer
The unofficial affixes: -oz-, -iv- and the shadow system
What official actually means, the suffixes that live anyway in medicine and chemistry, PMEG's asterisks, and Zamenhof's own ruling that the time for pedantry had not yet come.
The short version
The suffixes that live off the books
The Fundamento fixed the official affix list, but medicine and chemistry quietly run a shadow system: -oz- (poroza, muskoloza), -iv- (kreiva, produktiva), -esk- for styles. Read them freely, coin with them carefully - PMEG marks half of them with a warning asterisk. When in doubt, the official builds (plena de muskoloj, kapabla krei) say the same thing with licensed parts.
produktiva = kapabla produkti
Zamenhof on pedantry
Asked in 1911 whether pseudo-suffixes in borrowed words should be policed, Zamenhof answered that the time had not yet come for us to be too pedantic. It still has not. The working rule: a borrowed word owns its letters whole (aktiva is one root), an unofficial suffix earns its keep in technical registers, and nobody is marked wrong for writing produktiva.
Ne venis ankoraux la tempo, ke ni estu tro pedantaj.
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