On deverbal adjectives with -ish in English

Abstract This paper considers the evidence that the English suffix -ish (e.g. yellowish, baldish, ticklish, fivish, childish) can be attached to verbs, making it more clitic-like than a true affix. We discuss competing hypotheses in this light and present new evidence from historical and contemporary sources. In morphological theory, this can be interpreted as regarding -ish as a ‘cliticoid’, one step away from a true clitic on the affix-clitic continuum. © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights res