What do the letters mean? 2. Decoding. Suffixes

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-16 18:34

And they were left alone. We have examined the ways of decoding all parts of the word, except for suffixes. And it was not without reason that we left them for last. There are more suffixes than prefixes, they are more diverse and at the same time more understandable. If there are 4 prefixes in a word, this is an obvious semantic overload. Four suffixes are also not the most common picture, however, the feeling of overload does not arise, and such a word is perceived quite ordinary. For example, the word "sequence". Do you see how far from the ending "b" is the root "trace"? All the space between them was inhabited by suffixes. This is, for a moment, 11 letters. What's the secret? Let's try to find out, and in the meantime, find out the rules for decoding them and the relationship between neighbors.

By the way, there will not be at least one of the letters or one of the suffixes, and there will be no "sequence" itself. There will be something else. Let's look at the history of the word "sequence":

So, gradually swelling with new morphemes, words of any complexity are formed. Various attachments are added to the root from all sides, giving the resulting brand new words new meanings.

Prefixes convey the meaning of the next morpheme using the letter that is in contact with it. But the prefixes are in front, and the suffixes are at the end of the word. It turns out that the suffixes will only take on the meaning coming from the previous morpheme: the root or the preceding suffix. Let's see how suffixes can derive meaning from roots and other suffixes. What options are there at all?

« Pugach". A simple version: there is one suffix "-ach" in the word. The root "pug-" conveys the meaning to the suffix by means of the letter "A". Like this: "Pug", creates "H". Together with the ending it will look like:

« Scarecrow". The option is more complicated. There are already two suffixes here: "a" and "l". If the "a" suffix exactly refers to the root, then what does the second "l" suffix refer to?

Also to the root "pug".

Then the meanings of both suffixes will be homogeneous, and it turns out that these suffixes can be swapped. We are already familiar with this. It’s impossible to get another word with a different meaning.

To the suffix "A". What does it mean? This means that suffixes, just like prefixes, first collect their common meaning from left to right, and then all together, as a whole, take on the value of the root. Sounds like logical. Let's look at the diagram:

Now, when everything is clear, doubts appear. In order to find out the meaning of a word, we must first untie the meaning of the chain of suffixes, and only then convey to them the meaning of the root. It turns out that the value of the suffixes is more important than the value of the root, despite the fact that the chain of suffixes appears after the root and receives a meaning from it. The violation of logic is obvious, reading should always be from left to right, but let's see, maybe the remaining version is even worse.

To a ready-made construction of values (root + suffix "A") … Here, the root value is passed first to the first suffix, and then the common root and first suffix value is passed on. That is, the root, through each suffix, one after the other, transfers the meaning to the final suffix, from left to right along the chain. Let's see an example:

Here the logic is all right. Letter by letter, the overall meaning of the word accumulates towards the end of the word, without odd backward runs, and is passed on to the end. As it should be. So, we are adopting it.

Now you still need to finish with the "scarecrow" and understand what exactly these suffixes mean in this position.

Let's try to transfer the standard logic to this word. First the cause, then the action, and finally the result. The root "scare" is the cause. Then the first suffix "A" will be the action, the source of which was the cause. Well, the suffix "L" got the role of the result. Then we get a "scarecrow" - it is a scare that creates a container. Something doesn't fit, it should be the other way around, because a scarecrow creates a fright, and not a fright creates a scarecrow. Problem. Either our logic is not correct, or the word is spelled wrong.

Let's joke around with familiar old dictionaries and test our assumption. For the first time, the "scarecrow" can be found in the Church Slavonic Dictionary of 1847. Until the middle of the 19th century, this word is not in any dictionary, which raises doubts about the long history of its use. As, by the way, and many other nouns with a bunch of suffixes "a" and "l". There are very few of them, by the way. If we agree with the relative youth of such words, we get two logical explanations:

1. These are brand new words, which appeared after the change in the grammar of the language, when the original principles of writing were lost. This means that we cannot rely on such a spelling of the word in our research.
2. In place of the letter "A" there was a "hard mark" or "soft mark" … This follows from the fact that, according to the old rules, between the parts of a word there was always either a vowel or one of the signs: "b" or "b". We do not really know anything about the “soft sign” yet, but we can quite check the “hard” one with its meaning “Created”. Let's see:

The logic turned in the opposite direction, and everything fell into place. Now the "container" creates "fear", the scarecrow is the container of fear, as it should be. Nice? And then. But there is one "but". The first option has not gone anywhere; in fact, it may be a new word that appeared by the middle of the 19th century and appeared already based on the rules of the new grammar. There is nothing you can do about it. But we don’t need to do something about it, we just need to understand the logic by which the letters are in certain words. And we are still dealing with this.

As you might guess, "-ach" is one of the suffixes indicating a subjective assessment of the subject, depending on the personal perception of the observer. Isolation of an object against the background of others exactly the same on the basis of personal perception. It is this perception through the prism of inner feelings and sensations, and not logical inferences, that makes the selected object special. Although, at the same time, the properties, due to which the object was singled out from the faceless set, may not appear from the point of view of other observers. In our case, a "strong man" is someone who has sufficient strength for the observer to feel this very strength in him. Deeper. “Force” creates “H”, “Force” creates for the observer a “feeling” of himself in a given object, and therefore this object is a strong man for the observer. Deeper still. A strongman is an observer's assessment, even if the strongman himself is the observer. The observer sees the object, sees the force in the object, this force creates the feeling of its presence in the observer, therefore the observer believes that the object is a strong man.

This is not another logic. The logic cannot be different at all. Logic is a movement from cause to effect and, conversely, depending on the goal. It's just that we are all accustomed to object logic, where visible, material and quite specific objects are at the forefront. It's easier with them, you can see them, you can touch them. Here we have to work with images. And this is different, and you need to get used to it.

Using a couple of simple suffixes, we made conclusions that, in their meaning, can now be projected onto more complex situations, when there are more than two suffixes and when they consist of more than one letter.

The prefix "Po" conveys the meaning to the root "slѣd" using the letter "O". Further, their common meaning is conveyed to the suffix "ova" by means of the letter "O". Now the total value of "Posledov" is transferred to the "tel" suffix. Further, the meaning "follower" is transferred to the suffix "n" by means of "b". After that, "Sequential" is transferred to the suffix "Ost" with the help of the letter "O". The ending "b" crowns the word. Just? No. Well, the word is not simple either. And in the next chapter we will try to figure out why, according to modern rules, it is correct to single out the suffix "teln" in this word, and not "tel" + "n".

In the meantime, as usual, a notch for memory. The collection of values by suffixes is performed according to the following scheme: ((root + suffix1): → suffix2): → suffix3.

© Dmitry Lyutin. 2017.