subordination can be overused, become
tedious and overly complex, and fail to enliven or enforce your writing. In long stretches of sentences that use subordinating constructions, emphasis often comes by an abrupt switch to simple declarative sentences of the subject, verb, object type.
Suffix. Groups of letters attached to the ends of words or parts of words to make new meanings, new grammatical forms, or new
nuances of meaning are called“su xes”: “teach—teacher” “tender—tenderness”; “clear—clarity—clearing”;
“vision—visibility.”
Su xes may attach to the common
demonstrative form or
case of a word or to its
root, the smallest cluster of letters that still conveys the word’s fundamental meaning
(“clear” and “ciar-” as well as “vis-” in the examples.
The roots that end with ahyphen are those that don’t stand as words by themselves and must always have some ending attached to become independent words. From words or roots su xes can make
nouns of various kinds and meanings,
verbs, adjectives, or
adverbs. From the root “assum-,” for instance, come the noun assumption the verb assume and the adjective assumable Roots or words
can form more than one noun, verb, or adjective with di erent su xes: Real can become the nouns reality or “realism,”
with quite different meanings.
The list below records the major su xes and the meanings they usually add to a word or root.
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