Second edition

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Marxist; artist, scenarist, realist and their Russian equivalents). Of international currency is also the suffix -ism of Greek origin used to form abstract nouns denoting ‘philosophical doctrines, political and ’scientific theories,’ etc. (e.g. materialism, realism, Darwinism). Such prefixes as anti-, pre-, extra-, ultra- are also used to coin new words in many languages, especially in political and scientific terminology (e.g. anti-fascist, pro-German, extra-territorial, transatlantic, ultra-violet).
The adoption of countless foreign words exercised a great influence upon the system of English word-formation, one of the result being the appearance of many hybrid words in the English vocabulary. The term hybrid words is, needless to say, of diachronic relevance only. Here distinction should be made between two basic groups:

1. 
   Cases when a foreign stem is combined with a native affix, as in colourless, uncertain. After complete adoption the foreign stem is subject to the same treatment as native stems and new words are derived from it at a very early stage. For instance, such suffixes as -ful, -less, -ness were used with French words as early as 1300;
   
2. 
   Cases when native stems are combined with foreign affixes, such as drinkable, joyous, shepherdess. Here the assimilation of a structural pattern is involved, therefore some time must pass before a foreign affix comes to be recognised by speakers as a derivational morpheme that can be tacked on to native words. Therefore such formations are found much later than those of the first type and are less numerous. The early assimilation of -able is an exception. Some foreign affixes, as -ance, -al, -ity, have never become productive with native stems.
   

Reinterpretation of borrowed words gave rise to affixes which may not have been regarded as such in the source language. For instance, -scape occurring in such words as seascape, cloudscape, mountainscape, moonscape, etc. resulted from landscape of Dutch origin. The suffix -ade developed from lemonade of French origin, giving rise to fruitade, orangeade, gingerade, pineappleade, etc.; the noun electron of Greek origin contributed the suffix -tron very widely used in coining scientific and technical terms, e.g. cyclotron, magnetron, synchrophasotron, thyratron, etc.