Suffixes : ion, sion and tion

A lot of us spend our time on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram

Accepting friend requests and follow requests from people that we know is always fun

But we can also avoid people that we don’t like or are not compatible with

A ‘root word’ is like our social media account, it can accept multiple friend requests from different suffixes

Here is an example of a root word ‘nation’ having multiple suffixes

A suffix is a type of affix that is attached at the end of the word

The 'ion' suffix takes 3 forms -

The most important use of the ‘ion’ suffix is to convert verbs into nouns

Let us look at the word ‘rebellion’

The verb ‘rebel’ is combined with the suffix ‘ion’ to form a noun

The suffix ‘ion’ is also combined with the verb ‘opine’ to form the noun 'opinion'

‘Explosion’ is example of a verb being combined with the ‘sion’ suffix

Here, ‘explode’ is the independent root word being combined with ‘sion’

‘Allusion’ is another example of a verb that takes the ‘sion’ suffix to become a noun

An example of the use of the ‘tion’ suffix is in the word ‘opposition’

The independent root word ‘oppose’ which is a verb takes the ‘tion’ suffix and becomes a noun

Another example of the ‘tion’ suffix which creates a past participle is ‘ideation’

English has borrowed many words from Latin

A few of these words that English has borrowed are root words that function as adjectives in Latin

These words are always used with the suffix ‘ion’ attached as they are of Latin origin and do not have English root words

In these examples, ‘ion’ is a suffix, however there is no independent root word

Let us quickly revise what we have learnt

Suffixes are affixes that are attached at the end of a root word

Suffixes can change a word from a verb to a noun

The suffixes ‘ion’, ‘sion’ and ‘tion’ are examples of suffixes that convert verbs into nouns

That’s all Folks!