Word-formation

Non-productive affixes are the affixes which are not able to form new words in the period in question. Non-productive affixes are recognized as separate morphemes and possess clear-cut semantic characteristics. In some cases, however, the lexical meaning of a non­productive affix fades off so that only its part-of-speech meaning remains, e.g. the adjective-forming suffix -some (lonesome, loath­some).
Some non-productive English suffixes are given below:
Noun-forming suffixes -th (truth), -hood (sisterhood), -ship (scholarship)
Adjective-forming -ful (peaceful), -ly (sickly), -some (tiresome),
suffixes -en (golden), -ous (courageous)
Verb-forming suffixes -en (strengthen)

It is worthy of note that an affix may lose its productivity and then become productive again in the process of word-formation. This happened to the suffix -dom. For a long period of time it was non­productive but in the last hundred years -dom got a new lease of life so that a great amount of words was coined with its help, e.g. serfdom, slavedom.

The productivity of an affix should not be confused with its frequency of occurrence. The frequency of occurrence is understood as the existence in the vocabulary of a great number of words containing the affix in question. An affix may occur in hundreds of words, but if it is not used to form new words, it is not productive. For example, the adjective suffix -ful is met in hundreds of adjectives (beautiful, hopeful, trustful, useful), but no new words seem to be built with its help, and so it is non-productive.

4. ETYMOLOGY OF DERIVATIONAL AFFIXES

From the point of view of their etymology affixes are subdivided into two main classes: native affixes and borrowed affixes.

Native affixes are those existed in the Old English period or were formed from Old English words. The latter category is of special importance. The changes a morpheme undergoes in the course of time may be of different kinds. A bound morpheme, for example, may be developed from a free one. Such are the suffixes -dom (< dom 'fate, power'); -hood (< had 'state'); -lock (< lac 'actions or proceedings, practice'), -ship (< scipe 'state, condition'), and the prefixes over(< ofer 'in excess, extra, upper'), out- (< ut 'foreign, external'), etc. Some native English affixes are given below:
Noun-forming suffixes

-er -ness -ing -dom -hood -ship -th -let	teacher, driver, painter loveliness, ugliness, coldness meaning, singing, understanding wisdom, freedom, kingdom manhood, motherhood, neighbourhood mastership, workmanship, leadership health, length, truth booklet, coverlet, islet
Adjective-forming suffixes
-ful -less -y -ish -ly -en -some -like	joyful, sinful, skilful sleepless, senseless, harmless tidy, merry, cozy childish, stylish, snobbish ugly, likely, lovely silken, golden, wooden handsome, tiresome, burdensome dreamlike, ladylike, cowlike
Verb-forming suffixes
-en	redden, sadden, widen
Adverb-forming suffixes
-ly -wise	hardly, rarely, simply clockwise, otherwise, likewise
Prefixes be- mis- un- over-	befool, befriend, befog mismanage, misname, misuse unselfish, unacademic overdo, overact, overanalyze

Borrowed affixes are those that have come to the English language from different foreign languages. The affixes of foreign origin are classified according to their source into:

Latin
-able/-ible -ant/-ent extra- pre- ultra-	advisable, profitable, divisible attendant, servant, student extraterritorial, extracurricular pre-school, pre-race, pre-election ultra-high, ultra-intelligent
Greek