Breakdown of Суффикс «-то» показывает, что мы говорим о чём‑то неопределённом, но существующем.
Questions & Answers about Суффикс «-то» показывает, что мы говорим о чём‑то неопределённом, но существующем.
Yes, суффикс is the Russian word for suffix – a meaningful element that is attached to the end of a word (or word stem) and changes its meaning or function.
In Russian school grammar, -то in кто-то, что-то is sometimes called a постфикс (postfix) rather than a classic derivational suffix, because it’s stuck on after the whole word (not just the stem). But for a learner, you can safely think of суффикс -то as “the suffix -то added to pronouns/adverbs to give them an indefinite meaning.”
-то is a bound morpheme: it can’t stand alone, it only attaches to certain pronouns and adverbs. In Russian orthography, such elements are typically written with a hyphen:
- кто-то – someone
- что-то – something
- где-то – somewhere
- когда-то – sometime
- какой-то – some (kind of)
Writing it as two words (кто то) would be wrong and would look like кто (who) + то (the particle/word “that”), which changes the structure and is ungrammatical in this meaning.