ABSTRACT
The suffix -dom makes three main types of nouns. The suffix -hood makes nouns meaning ‘the state of being a ~’. For example, motherhood is the state of being a mother. Unlike -dom, -hood is regularly found with non-person nouns in the base: wordhood is the state of being a word. Nouns ending in -hood can also mean ‘the period during which one is a ~’, so that childhood can mean ‘the period during which one is a child’. Two affixes are used to make locational nouns from other nouns, but in neither case is it the primary usage of the affix. The suffix -age has a number of meanings, of which location is just one. Locational nouns with -age include hermitage, orphanage, parsonage. The suffix -er, which usually has a verb for its base, is also found attached to nouns. The suffix -ist makes agent-like nouns from other nouns as its preferred pattern.
