Introduction

Summary

In his comprehensive descriptive work on English word formation, Hans Marchand expressed the following opinion about the meaning of derivational suffixes (1969, 215): “Unlike a free morpheme a suffix has no meaning in itself, it acquires meaning only in conjunction with the free morpheme which it transposes.” In context, what Marchand means does not seem nearly so radical. He goes on in the same passage to explain that derivational suffixes change either syntactic or semantic class, and his prime example is the suffix -er (1969, 215):

As a word class transposer, -er plays an important part in deverbal derivatives, while in denominal derivatives its role as a word class transposer is not important, since basis and derivative in the majority of cases belong to the same word class “substantive” … ; its role as a semantic transposer, however, is different in this case. Although most combinations denote a person, more specifically a male person (types potter, Londoner, banqueter, weekender), many other semantically unrelated senses are possible. Derivatives with -er may denote a banknote, bill (fiver, tenner), a blow (backhander), a car, a bus (two-seater, two-decker), a collar (eight-incher), a gun (six-pounder), a gust of wind (noser, souther), a lecture at a certain hour (niner “a class at nine o'clock”), a line of poetry (fourteener), a ship (three-decker, freighter, …).

Marchand of course does not mean to say that -er actually means “car,” “bus,” “banknote,” or “gust of wind” in these forms.