Affixation

Sarhaddi Balochi dialect, a language variety of Western (Rakhshani) Balochi, employs derivation through affixation as one of its word formation processes. The purpose of this article is to present a synchronic description of the way(s) different derivational affixes function in making complex words in Sarhaddi Balochi as spoken in Granchin[1] district located about 35Kms to the southeast of Khash in Sistan and Baluchestan Province of The Islamic Republic of Iran. The linguistic corpus was gathered through fieldwork. The data were collected from the free speech of 10 uneducated native speakers including 5 males and 5 females of about 5o-80 year old living in Granchin with various social backgrounds. The findings of the research signify that complex words of this dialect are derived via derivational prefixes, infixes and suffixes, among which derivational suffixes are more active or productive. The research also shows that the main derivatives of this dialect are derived verbs, derived nouns, derived adjectives, and derived adverbs.

This mini-corpus, cross-linguistic, comparative, and norm-referenced study intends to render the most frequently and oft-used affixes in the written descriptive tasks in the performance of English language materials developers (ELMDs) and Iranian English language undergraduates (IELUs). Samples of writings of both groups were studied and analyzed through affixation principles. The frequency of nearly 63 affixes both inflectional and derivational morphemes was taken into account. The statistical analysis showed a highly significant correlation (.86) with (.75) coefficient determination (shared variance) between the performance of IELUs and ELMDs. The result of the study bears approximately a close resemblance to the findings by Bauer et al.(1982), Fry and Kress (2006), Honig, Diamond, Gutlohn, and Mahler (2000), and White, Sowell, and Yanagihara (1989). Finally, the implications of the study were taken into account.