Prefixes and Suffixes

Most of the Portuguese vocabulary is neither inherited nor borrowed: it is built. From a small stock of bases and an inventory of affixes — short elements added to the start or end of a word — the language generates thousands of new terms with great regularity. Affixes placed before the base are prefixes; those placed after, suffixes. Each carries a stable meaning and, in the case of suffixes, a grammatical class too.

Prefixation and suffixation: two distinct operations

The difference is not merely one of position. A prefix modifies the meaning of the base but, as a rule, does not change its class: from fazer “to do” (verb) comes desfazer “to undo” (verb); from feliz “happy” (adjective), infeliz “unhappy” (adjective). A suffix, by contrast, usually changes the grammatical class: the verb realizar “to carry out” yields the noun realização “achievement”; the adjective feliz yields the noun felicidade “happiness” and the adverb felizmente “happily”.

The productive prefixes

Almost all Portuguese prefixes come from Latin prepositions and adverbs, joined — chiefly in technical and scientific language — by a layer of Greek elements. The most productive today express relations of negation, repetition, anteriority, position and intensity.

Prefix	Value	Examples
des-	negation, reversal	*desfazer* ‘undo’, *desigual* ‘unequal’
in- / i- / im-	negation, privation	*incapaz*, *ilegal*, *impossível*
re-	repetition, reinforcement	*refazer* ‘redo’, *reler* ‘reread’
pré- / pós-	before / after	*pré-histórico*, *pós-guerra*
anti-	opposition	*anticorpo* ‘antibody’, *antirrugas*
sub- / super-	below / above	*subsolo* ‘subsoil’, *supermercado*
co-	joint, together	*coautor* ‘co-author’, *cogestão*
auto-	‘oneself’ (Gr.)	*autodefesa*, *autoestima*

Negation deserves a special note, because it has two rival prefixes. The Latin in- assimilates to the following consonant — i- before l or r (ilegível “illegible”, irregular), im- before p or b (impossível, imberbe “beardless”) — and tends to attach to more learned bases. Des- is the living prefix of negation and reversal, free to apply to verbs and to fresh coinages (descomplicar “to de-complicate”, desbloquear “to unblock”).

Writing prefixes: hyphen or not

The 1990 Orthographic Agreement laid down that, as a rule, a hyphen is used only when the second element begins with the same vowel that ends the prefix, or with h: anti-inflamatório, micro-ondas, anti-higiénico. When the prefix ends in a consonant and the base begins with r or s, these double and the word is written solid: antirrugas “anti-wrinkle”, antissocial, ultrarresistente. Prefixes such as co- fuse even before a vowel: coautor, cooperar.

Suffixes and the change of class

It is in suffixation that Portuguese shows its greatest fertility. The suffixes are best grouped by the class of the word they produce.

Nouns from verbs

These are the most numerous. They name the action or its result:

• -ção / -são (Lat. -tio): realizar → realização, decidir → decisão “decision”;
• -mento: crescer → crescimento “growth”, pensar → pensamento “thought”;
• -agem: aterrar → aterragem “landing”, lavar → lavagem “washing”;
• -dor / -dora (agent): vender → vendedor “seller”, computar → computador “computer”.

Nouns from adjectives

These express an abstract quality:

• -dade / -idade: bom → bondade “goodness”, real → realidade “reality”;
• -ez / -eza: honrado → honradez “honesty”, belo → beleza “beauty”;
• -ismo (doctrine, attitude) and -ista (adherent, agent): real → realismo / realista.

Adjectives and verbs

• -ável / -ível form adjectives of possibility: amar → amável “lovable”, ler → legível “legible”;
• -oso signals abundance: medo → medroso “fearful”, fama → famoso “famous”;
• -izar and -ecer form verbs: real → realizar, noite → anoitecer “to grow dark”.

The adverb: a single suffix

Modern Portuguese forms manner adverbs in just one way: the suffix -mente, added to the feminine form of the adjective (rápida → rapidamente “quickly”). It is a curious suffix, descended from the Latin noun mente (“with the mind of”), which is why, in a list, it need only be marked on the last word: clara e objetivamente “clearly and objectively”.

Evaluative suffixes

A class apart are the evaluative suffixes, which do not change the word’s class but add a judgement of size or affection: the diminutives (-inho, -zinho: casa → casinha “little house”) and the augmentatives (-ão, -aço: carro → carrão “big car”). Their value is as much expressive as dimensional — um cafezinho is rarely a matter of measurement — and they are treated in a dedicated article.

Productivity and new words

Not all affixes are equally alive. An affix is said to be productive when the language uses it to coin new words it has never heard before — and speakers understand them at once. Today, prefixes such as anti-, pós-, auto- and super-, and suffixes such as -ização, -ista and -mente, are among the most active, above all in the press and in technical language.