A Comparative Approach to Class Changing Derivational Affixes in English and Kurdish

Abstract

This paper is an analytical comparative morphological study of class changing of some of derivational affixes in Standard English and Central Kurdish from the standpoints of Generative Morphology. For the analysis, this work relies heavily on the identification of various class changing affixes between the two languages under study. The main goal is to identify the points of similarity and difference of class changing affixes that change the grammatical categories and the lexical meaning of the existing lexemes. The findings show that English and Kurdish are similar in the formation of nominal and adjectival affixes where certain lexemes can change the lexical categories and the meaning of the newly derived words. In English, in the formation of verbal affixes, a ‘noun’ and an ‘adjective’ can be converted into a ‘verb’ by adding certain prefixes and suffixes. While in Kurdish, no new lexemes can be formed from the root of the verb since the internal structure of the verbs in Kurdish works differently compared to English. In Kurdish, the suffix -a is attached to some cardinal numerals to derive a new noun, whereas in English, no newly derived nouns can be formed by numerals. English and Kurdish are different in the formation of new adverbial affixes. In English, certain adjectives and nouns can derive certain types of adverbs while in Kurdish these lexical categories are unable to derive adverbs by attaching certain derivational affixes.

Keywords

• affixation
• base
• class changing affixes
• derivation
• multiple affixation