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Hybrid Anglo-French Forms |
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The be- prefix was attached to several Old French
words, such as befool, besiege, and beguile
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Old English suffix -ful generated many adjectives
from Old French nouns, such as beautiful, graceful,
merciful, faithful, and pitiful
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French affixes were used with Germanic words. The French
-able suffix combined with English roots to produce
knowable, findable, speakable, doable, makeable, and
hundreds more
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Often the two languages both added an affix to a single
word: in unknowable we have an English prefix and a
French suffix sandwiching an English word; in discovering
we have a French prefix and an English suffix sandwiching a
French word
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The process of affixation evolved into a major
characteristic of English vocabulary (40-50 percent of all
the words in the language have a least one prefix or suffix)
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French introduced such (Latin-derived) prefixes as con-,
de-, dis-, en-, ex-, pre-, pro-, and trans-, and
such suffixes as -able, -ance/-ence, -ant/-ent, -ity, -ment,
and -tion
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The suffixes were especially productive. The -tion
ending alone produced hundreds of creations, such as
damnation, temptation, mortification, contemplation, and
suggestion
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There would be a comparable explosion in the use of prefixes
towards the end of the Middle English period: conjoin,
despoil, disobedient, and enchant
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