Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Every country in the world has languages, whether they are official language like Bahasa Indonesia or local language like Javanese language. Language is not only a means of communication or interaction but also is used to develop social relationships with other people Trudgill, 2000: 1. Language has an important role in human life. Language develops along with human growth. It is used in any aspects like speaking, reading, writing, and listening. Since the development of language becomes wider and faster, the function of language changes. Nowadays, language is not only used to build relationships but also by using a language, human beings are able to convey and gain information, express feelings, give opinions, command, and interpret everything in daily life. Thus, language is an essential thing in communication. Language includes a scientific study which is commonly called as linguistics. Akmajian, Demers, Farmer, and Harnish maintain that linguistics is a field which focuses on language and communication 2001: 5. They divide linguistics into five subfields Akmajian et al., 2001: 12. The first subfield is phonology, which is the study of sound system and sound pattern of human language. The second subfield is pragmatics, which concerns with the study of speaker and contextual meaning. The third subfield is syntax. It is the study of the internal sentences of the structure. The fourth subfield is semantics, which 2 focuses on the study of word meaning. The last but not least subfield is morphology, which deals with the internal structure of words and the relation among words. Affixation is a part of word structure. It means, affixation is one of phenomena in morphology. Therefore, affixation can be analyzed in words with various classes, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Affixation is a term for “the process of adding an affix” Matthews, 1997: 11. Affixes are divided into three types according to their positions. The first type is called as prefixes. O’Grady and Archibald state that a prefix is an affix which is attached to the front of the base 2010: 120. The second type is infixes. An infix is placed in the middle of two bases. The third type is suffixes. A suffix occurs at the end of the base. Among those three types of affixes, according to Szymanek 1989: 63, suffixes are widely used in various languages in the world and often used in daily communication. Therefore, this study discusses it. In order to make it more specific, this study is limited to the suffix {-ure}, which is originated from the French suffix {-ure} and also the Latin suffix {-ura}. Two methods, namely synchronic and diachronic, are used in this study. The data are collected from Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary Ninth Edition 2015 and The New Oxford American Dictionary Second Edition 2005. By conducting this study, the researcher expects that it can give deeper understanding of the usage of the suffix {-ure} to the readers. It can help the readers know about the form, function, and meaning of the suffix {-ure}. 3 Moreover, this study gives more understanding about the morphophonemic processes of suffix {-ure}.

B. Problem Formulation