Appendix talk:Vietnamese words derived from historically affixed forms

Other potential words with affixations

For the category of the *k- prefix, I've found some other words that I suspect to be of similar derivation. The first case is bú (to suck) -> vú (breast), which historically had a *k- initial. The second case is less clear, but ngồi (to sit) -> ngôi (seat -> throne) can also be explained with an unidentified voiceless prefix. Seeing the semantic relationships between the root word and the derived word of both case are so similar to the established prefixed terms về -> quê, and lên -> trên, I am tempted to explain that *k- is a locative noun prefix derived from verbs. Another case with *k- initial and with locative noun meaning is lòng (intestine) -> trong (inside), but the root word isn't a verb, so might be merely a coincidence and not be a prefix at all.

The second set of affixation I want to bring up is *-ʔ. Two suspected sets of words I have found are chùm (cluster) -> chụm (to gather) and cây (tree, plant) -> cấy (to transplant, usually young rice plants). In both cases, the root word is a noun, and the modified word is a causative verb. There is another potential, though more dubious case I found, is căm (wheel spoke, originally meaning arrow) -> cắm (to insert); if the two words truly are related, then cắm can be interpreted as originally meaning to stick an arrow onto the ground/quiver, or more likely, the action of an arrow hitting and piercing a target. If this is a valid suffix, it might serve the function of a verbal suffix to describe an action of delivering an object/objects to their destination. LilyMaya (talk) 03:17, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Good suggestions. I've never thought of that căm-cắm pair and although I'm not totally convinced, I can see the potential of it being true. PhanAnh123 (talk) 09:56, 7 December 2024 (UTC)