Russian affixes in Yiddish

Summary

Affix function number of borrowed affixes

Description

Information and examples are from Weinreich (1958:378–380; see also Reershemius 2007). Weinreich (1958:378) notes that the following eight additional potential cases of borrowed affixes have “rather limited distribution in the lexicon ［and］ are limited to a relatively small number of words each”, therefore they are not counted here: -še ‘feminizer’, -čik ‘endearing’, and five ‘pejoratives’ -ak, -áč, -éts, and -l’ák, -nák. The remaining thirteen borrowed affixes, given in the following, are said to be “highly productive” (Weinreich 1958:378). Weinreich (1958:378) notes that there are “many others”, without giving further details.

3 feminine noun derivation

  • -ke ‘feminine’, e.g. lérerke ‘woman teacher’
  • -ixe ‘feminine form of animal and (pejorative) personal names’, e.g. léjb-ixe ‘lioness, Leyb’s wife’
  • -ńítse ‘feminine form of personalizing or agentive nouns’, e.g. ejšes-íš-ńítse ‘adulteress’

2 (pejorative) adjectivizers

  • -ske, e.g. oriman-ske ‘fit for a pauper’
  • -(ev)ate, e.g. tam-evate ‘dull’

3 noun-noun derivation

  • -arné ‘place name mildly contemptuous’, e.g. xasid-arné ‘gathering place for khasidim’
  • -ńik ‘personalizing or agentive derivation’, e.g. jišuf-ńik ‘village Jew’
  • -úk ‘pejorative, especially for names of occupations’, e.g. šuster-úk ‘contemptible cobbler’

3 endearing vocatives/diminutives

  • -(e)ńu, e.g. kínd-eńu ‘dear child’
  • -ink(e), used with nouns, e.g. múm-inke ‘dear aunt’, with adjectives, e.g. dos rójt-ink-e kíšele ‘the little red (endearing) pillow’, with verbs, e.g. šlóf-inke-en ‘to sleep (nursery-talk)’, with adverbs, e.g. pamél-ink-es ‘slowly (endearing)’, and with at least one interjection, e.g. gváld-ink-es ‘heavens!’
  • -ičk, used (also) with adjectives, e.g. der ált-ičk-er man ‘the old (endearing) man’

1 privative prefix, “incipiently productive” (Weinreich 1958:378) and syntagmatically related to the personalizing or agentive derivational suffix -ńik in the sense that it “seems to be limited to constructions with -ńik in pejorative vocabulary” (Weinreich 1958:378).

  • bez- ‘without’, e.g. bez-buš-ńik ‘shameless person’

1 verbalizer of interjections

  • -ke- ‘verbalizer’, e.g. bom-ke-n ‘to say “bom”’