# Hand-book of Volapük/Suffixes

SUFFIXES. Some suffixes are formed by cutting off the beginnings of nouns.
From mul, month. -ul as a termination for the names of months. There are two sets of names for the months: one derived from the numerals, the other from the Roman names,—
| January, February, March, April, May, June, | balul telul kilul folul lulul mälul | or or or or or or | yanul. febul. mäzul. apul. mayul. yunul. | July, August, September, October, November, December, | velul jölul zülul balsul babul batul | or or or or or or | yulul. gustul. setul.otul novul dekul. |
Cinän, China.Bayän, Bavaria.Lusän, Russia.
Tidüp, a lesson (teaching time). Kiüp? when? at what time? Patüp, the present tense. Yelüp, the course of a year.
(1) -op, for the divisions of the earth.
| Yulop, Europe. Fikop, Africa. | Silop, Asia. Melop, America. |
| Talop, Australia. ||
(2) -öp, for a place.
Kiöp? where? Malädöp, a hospital.
-el, -er; one who does, a person. Mekel, a maker, from mekön, to make. Datuvel, discoverer, from datuv, discovering. Tidel, teacher.
| Melopel, an American. Deutel, a German. | Nelijel, Englishman. Flentel, Frenchman. |
​The following illustration shows the various gradations of diminutiv and augmentativ words in Volapük:
| luzifil, smazifil, zifil, luzif, smazif, zif, lulezif, lezif, glezif, luglezif, leglezif, | wretched little town, little hamlet, little town, wretched town, village, town, big ugly city, city, important big city or capital. miserable great city, metropolis. |
The endings -ik, -el, -am,' are the most common, and almost every radical may assume them. In our vocabulary we frequently give the radical only or one of these derivativs, leaving the others to be inferred.
From any radical denoting a quality may be formed, by adding ik, an adjectiv attributing that quality, as gud, goodness, gudik, good; jap, sharpness, japik, sharp. Thus dropping ness is equivalent to adding ik, or vice versa. In this case we usually give the adjectiv only, leaving the student to drop the ik and add the ness; or we give the noun only, leaving him to drop the ness and add the ik.
Every root has, or may have, an adjectiv form in ik, but there is not always a corresponding English adjectiv. Many adjectivs are entirely lacking in English. We have no such word, for example, as “to-daily,” and we use the possessiv, “to-day's newspaper;” but in Volapük, „gased adelik.“ We have “golden” derived from “gold,” but have no adjectiv derived from “iron.” But in Volapük „golüdik, lelik, silefik,“ are regularly formed from „golüd, lel, silef,“ and in translating from English we must be careful to distinguish; in phrases like “silver watch,” treating “silver” as an adjectiv; „glok silefik.“ Whole phrases are also rendered by an adjectiv in ik or an adverb in iko; the adjectiv being used if the phrase qualifies a noun, the adverb, if it qualifies a verb.
Many words are used both as nouns and as verbs in Volapük and in English. Thus we speak of a name and to ​name, nem and nemön; a reward and to reward, mesed and mesedön. In this case we add the syllable -ön as an indication that that same words are used as nouns and as verbs. But if -ön or -ik be enclosed in parenthesis we mean that a slight but obvious change is made in passing from one English part of speech to another.
Any verb may form a noun in am, which expresses the action of the verb, like our words in -tion; for example plepalön, to prepare, plepalam, preparation.
Almost any verb may form a noun in el, which expresses the doer of the action, as plepalel, a preparer; studön, to study, studel, a student.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse