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-liks
quickinfo

The suffix -liks /ləks/ derives adverbs and adjectives from nouns denoting relatively longer time spans. The relevant forms are daagliks daily, wykliks weekly and jierliks yearly. The meaning is "(occurring) every {time span}".

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It is striking that only longer time periods may form the base of the derivation. The sekonde second, menút minute and also oere hour do not qualify (although the form uurlijks hourly exists in Dutch). Also quite long periods, like ieu century or even milinnium milennium are not found as a base.

The suffix derives both adverbs and adjectives. The meaning contribution is distributive: "(occurring) every {time span}". An example is:

1
Jierliks betelje wy 20 euro kontribúsje
yearly pay we 20 euro subscription fee
Every year we pay 20 euro's as subscription fee

However, in adverbial use an alternative expression with the quantifieralle all is preferred, as in alle jierren all year.PL every year. We therefore find the derivations especially attributively, for example in de jierlikse kontribúsje the yearly-INFL subscription.fee the annual subscription fee. We see here that the adjective is normally inflected. However, for semantic reasons there are no comparative or superlative forms. Also, the adjective is not used predicatively; instead, another verb has to be used, which renders the form an adverb:

2
a. *Dit blêd is wykliks
this magazine is weekly
This is a weekly magazine
b. Dit blêd ferskynt wykliks
this paper appears weekly
This paper is published every week

The derivations with -liks fail to serve as input for further derivation. However, we do find synthetic compounds with this suffix, in which the noun is combined with a numeral, as in twawykliks two-week-ly. For more information, see -liks in synthetic compounds.

The use of the suffix is not very frequent in Frisian. There is the competing suffix -s, or the concept is described by phrases like alle wiken every week or de wike per week. The form daagliks daily may be a loan from Dutch, as the stem daag- only occurs in the (irregular) plural form of dei day. A more frequent synonym is deistich daily, with a suffich -ich. The word jierliks yearly shows breaking.

extra
Adjective and adverb

It is tempting to analyze the sequence liks as consisting of the suffix -lik and the suffix -s. However, forms like *wyklik do not exist, which is the reason for considering -liks as one suffix here. The ending in -s suggests that the adverbial use might be basic. The adjectival use of adverbs ending in -s is not completely unusual, however, for instance in in ûnferwacht-s-e besite a unexpected-ADV-INFL visit an unexpected visit.

References
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