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The Modern English-ing ending, which is used to form both gerunds and present participles of verbs (i.e. in noun and adjective uses), derives from two different historical suffixes. The gerund (noun) use comes from Middle English-ing, which is from Old English-ing, -ung (suffixes forming nouns from verbs).
Derivational morphology often involves the addition of a derivational suffix or other affix. Such an affix usually applies to words of one lexical category (part of speech) and changes them into words of another such category. For example, one effect of the English derivational suffix -ly is to change an adjective into an adverb (slow → slowly).
The English suffix-mania denotes an obsession with something; a mania.The suffix is used in some medical terms denoting mental disorders.It has also entered standard English and is affixed to many different words to denote enthusiasm or obsession with that subject.
Through a process of derivational morphology, adjectives may form words of other categories. For example, the adjective happy combines with the suffix -ness to form the noun happiness. It is typical of English adjectives to combine with the -ly suffix to become adverbs (e.g., real → really; encouraging → encouragingly). [b]
For a comprehensive and longer list of English suffixes, see Wiktionary's list of English suffixes. Subcategories This category has the following 2 subcategories, out of 2 total.
For example, in the word happiness, the addition of the bound morpheme -ness to the root happy changes the word from an adjective (happy) to a noun (happiness). In the word unkind, un-functions as a derivational morpheme since it inverts the meaning of the root morpheme (word) kind. Generally, morphemes that affix to a root morpheme (word) are ...
Similar behavior is displayed by many adjectives with the suffix -able or -ible (e.g. the best room available, the only decision possible, the worst choice imaginable, the persons liable). Certain other adjectives with a sense similar to those in the foregoing categories are customarily found postpositively ( all the people present , the first ...
The gerund takes the same form (ending in -ing) as the present participle, but is used as a noun (or rather the verb phrase introduced by the gerund is used as a noun phrase). [23] Many uses of gerunds are thus similar to noun uses of the infinitive. Uses of gerunds and gerund phrases are illustrated below: As subject or predicative expression: