What are some example-words to show how well affixes work?

Question

I've seen malsanulejo in many places; a good example for how logically roots and affixes can be combined to make useful words. Malsanulejo has a clear meaning, and can easily be translated into natural languages. The best thing is that it is used fairly often. I want to present a few words like this to some ne-esperantistoj. Can you give me more examples? Or can you direct me somewhere else?

Answer 1

A nice example which comes to my mind is senarbarigo (deforestation). It is based on the radical arb/o (tree), with the following affixes:

• -aro: a set (with some internal consistency), so arbaro means forest
• -igo: the action of causing to be, so arbarigo means forestation or afforestation
• sen-: without, so senarbarigo literally means "causing to not be a forest"

Answer 2

I have programmed a tool that has parsed all the words in the Tekstaro de Esperanto. The most common compounds with four roots+affixes in this corpus are the following ones (the number of occurrences of the compound in the Tekstaro de Esperanto is indicated in brackets):

• maljunulino (191)
• homaranismo (129)
• sendependeco (63; note that depend is not a root, but a compound of de and pend, even though the semantic link to pendi ('to hang') is only metaphorical)
• neregistara (62)
• enterigita (50)
• malsanulejo (45)
• enkomputiligi (41)

Here are the most common compounds with five roots+affixes:

• naskiĝdatreveno (18)
• junulargastejo (8)
• duonmalfermita (7)

Compounds with six roots+affixes only appear as hapax legomena, i.e. as words which appear only once in the whole corpus, and are therefore spontaneous creations of the authors in question rather than established compounds. Here are all such compounds that my program has found:

• tridekunujaraĝulo
• postsendependeculo
• junularprizorgado
• fiartefaritaĉaĵo
• elmalsanulejiĝi
• eksduonbofratino

Not counting the made-up street name “Vivulaliberfeliĉahomsocieto”-strato, no compounds with seven or more roots+affixes can be found in the Tekstaro de Esperanto.

Answer 3

Here are some that come to mind, not chosen very scientifically...

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Farendaĵo - far-end-aĵ-o - A thing that must be done, an errand, an obligation. More literally: a "must-do" thing.

• fari = to do
• -end- = affix which denotes something to be done or which must be done
• -aĵ- = a thing

Mi havas iom da farendaĵojn hodiaŭ. = I have some things I need to do today.

Ĉi tio estas farendaĵo. = This is something that must be done.

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Enlitiĝi - en-lit-iĝ-i - To go to bed, to get into bed. More literally: to become in bed.

• en = in
• lit = bed
• -iĝ- = denotes that a state has come into being, become

Enlitiĝu! = Go to bed!

Mi enlitiĝis frue. = I went to bed early.

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Tagiĝo - tag-iĝ-o - Dawn, daybreak. More literally: the becoming of day.

• tag = day
• -iĝ- = denotes that a state has come into being, become

Mi ellitiĝis je la tagiĝo. = I got out of bed at the break of dawn.

Kokoj krias tagiĝe. = Roosters cry at dawn.

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Elirejo - el-ir-ej-o - Exit, way out. More literally: a go-out-of place, a place for going out of.

• el = from, out of
• iri = to go
• -ej- = place used for an action or object

Mi erare eniris la elirejon. = I mistakenly entered the exit; I accidentally went in to the way out.

Elirejo ne troveblas. = There is no exit to be found; the way out cannot be found.

Answer 4

I often use ĉevalo as an example, because in my native language (French), it's a good example of root parsimony:

• ĉevalo: cheval
• ĉevala: chevalin, hippique, équin, équestre
• ĉevalaĉo: canasson, bourrin
• ĉevalaĵo: viande de cheval
• ĉevalido: poulain
• ĉevalejo: écurie
• ĉevaleto: -
• ĉevalino: jument
• ĉeval(rajd)anto: cavalier