English Derivational Suffixes from Handbags Online Advertisement

Abstract

This paper aims to survey frequency and occurrence of vocabulary (derivational suffixes) related to the English advertisement of handbags, and to analyze the root and base of vocabulary on derivational suffixes in English handbag online advertisements. 1,000 advertising texts were collected from five websites. The data were categorized by Word-classified forms and analyzed the structures of derivational suffixes by using AntConc to identify word frequency. The resulted showed that there were 541 words found which can be divided into four formation types: 317 noun-forming words, 106 adjective-forming words, 95 adverb-forming words and 31 verb-forming words, respectively. The most frequent words with derivational suffixes were adjustable (96), compartment (92) and metallic (81). In addition to derivational suffixes obtained from online handbag advertisements, 16 categories were identified: 1) -er, -or and -ar, 2) -ion, 3) -ment, 4) -ence/ -ance, 5) -ness, 6) -ity, 7) -ize, 8) -less, 9) -ful, 10) -y, 11) -ous, 12) -al, 13) -ic, 14) -able/-ible, 15) -ive, and 16) -ly. The results also showed that one vocabulary can be attached more than one suffix. The number of words with suffixes and frequency were sophistication (20), personalize (17) and effortlessly (16) respectively. The results and implications were discussed in this paper.