Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics

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Affixation: Pre-Modern Hebrew
(1,634 words)

Affixation is the addition of a formative to a morphological base. Traditionally affixes are divided into prefixes, suffixes, and infixes. Prefixes and suffixes are common in pre-modern Hebrew; infixes are rare. In the nominal system, prefixes may be found in some of the noun patterns (משקלים mišqalim; Mishqal ). The most frequent of them is -מ mV- (a and i are the most common vowels), which marks nouns of location, e.g., מָקוֹם må̄qōm ‘place’, מִדְבָּר miḏbå̄r ‘desert’, instrument, e.g., מַפְתֵּחַ map̄tēaḥ ‘key’, מִזְבֵּח mizbeaḥ ‘altar’, and abstraction, e.g., מִבְטָח miḇṭå̄ḥ ‘trust’, מ…

Cite this page
Fassberg, Steven E., “Affixation: Pre-Modern Hebrew”, in: Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Edited by: Geoffrey Khan. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2212-4241_ehll_EHLL_COM_00000278>
First published online: 2013
First print edition: 9789004176423



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