ABSTRACT
According to the orthodox theory of linguists all suffixes should have taken their origin in independent words, which have gradually dwindled down to subordination. Though this is evidently true of some suffixes in historical times, such as English -dom and -hood, an enormous multitude of suffixes have never been, and probably never will be, explained in this way. It will be my task here to track the vicissitudes of one English suffix, -en, which serves to transform adjectives like sharp into verbs like sharpen. Such verbs when transitive are generally termed causatives, and when intransitive, inchoatives: in both cases they denote the change in condition from less to more sharp, etc.
