The Iconicity of English
Affixation
Didi Sukyadi
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
Challenges to arbitrariness:
• De Saussure (1993:87): Arbitrariness can
be very absolute (unmotivated) or
relatively motivated.
• For example, in dix-neuf, individually dix
and neuf are unmotivated, but dix-neuf is
relatively motivated because it is derived
from dix and neuf.
Peirce (1940:101):
• Signs can have iconic, indexical or
symbolic mode.
• The iconic mode can be (Hartsthorne and
Weiss, 1965:157) an image, diagram or a
metaphor.
Jakobson (1971:349): Diagram
Similarities between signifier and signified
exist in the relation among the parts:
• sequence of four sonorant consonants (S)
and four vowels (V) (SVSV-VSVS),
• comparison (high-higher-highest)
• constellation of words having the same
meaning bound certain sounds (smash,
crash, dash, lash, hash, rash, brash, clash,
trash, plash, splash, and flash).
Haiman (1985:3)
• In a diagram, the relation among parts of
the diagram is similar to the relation
among the parts of the concept.
Greenberg (1995: 57-62)
• There are external and internal iconicity.
The first refers to the isomorphic relation
between external/conceptual world and
language
• This mapping according to Nany and
Fischer (1999) takes place in metaphor:
foot (body part) and foot (lowest part of a
mountain).
Nöth (2001:21): Miming
• 1) form miming meaning and
• 2) form miming form.
• The first is exophoric (referring to
language signs beyond the language)
• The second is endophoric (referring to
reference inside the language).
Endophoric iconicity,
• a sign can be mapped into the language
either syntagmatically (repetition,
parallelism, alliteration, rhymes, and
reduplication)
• paradigmatically (iconicity in the system of
the language) such as in iconicity of
distance or number.
Endophoric-paradigmatic iconicity
• water, watery, waterfall have the same
basic meaning (water).
• watery is diagrammatically iconic to
waterfall because of the root of water and
• it is also iconic to rainy and snowy
because of –y derivation.
Argument of this paper
• Diagrammatic notion can be extended to
the process of affixation. I believe that
affixation is an iconic process.
METHODOLOGY
• Corpus: 400.000.00 words derived from texts
related to education, linguistics, TESOL, and
literature
• Affixes studied: (-ly, -ity, -tic, cy and-ful) and 5
prefixes (dis-, de-, re-, in- and inter).
• Theretical framework: Jackson (1990:9) about
semantic category of English lexems.
• Analysis
• All verbs with a certain affix are examined and
matched to the categories.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
• The formation a new word using affixation
mostly refers to already existing affixation
process.
• For example, the formation “reconsider” is
possible because we already have
“review”, “rethink”, “redesign”,
“reconstruct”.
Diagrammatic Iconicity
• Diagrammatically, prefix re- in “reconsider”
corresponds with prefix “-re” in “review”,
“rethink”, “redesign”, “reconstruct” etc.,
while “consider” as a base corresponds
with the root “think”, “design”, “construct.”
Iconicity of Affixation
• Affixation is iconic in the sense that there
is a transparency in the formation of the
words through derivation.
Transparent and Opaque
• When a language has symbols of the
concepts or objects represented, the
language is transparent or isomorphic,
while the reverse is opaque or arbitrary.
• When we encounter suffix –ity, we can
directly say that it is nominal, -de and -re
are verbal, and –ly is adverbial and
• If it is so, we can say that the process is
transparent or iconic.
Deep structure - Surface structure
• There is a projection from the deep
structure into its surface structure and the
projection is like a diagram, a
diagrammatic projection.
Syantagmatic-Paradigmatic
• There is a one-to-one syntagmatic
correspondence between quick and
quickly and adjective and verb.
• In addition, there is also a one-to-one
paradigmatic correspondence between
quick and adjective, and between quickly
and adverb as described below.
Diagrammatic iconicity
• Quick
Adjective
→
quickly
→
verb
CONCLUSION
• To summarize, affixation in English is
iconic seen from three perspectives.
• First, the formation of a new word is
relatively motivated because it tends to
refer to an already established word such
as the formation of reestablish which might
refer to reorganize.
CONCLUSION
(cont’d)
• Secondly, the fact that the attachment of
affixes to their bases is rule governed lets
us say that affix categorization is
transparent not opaque, while
transparency is an indicator of iconicity.
CONCLUSION
(cont’d)
• Finally, the correspondence between the
surface structure and the deep structure in
the process of affixation whether
syntagmatically or paradigmatically allows
us to draw an association, projection, or a
diagram and this diagram is iconic.