The prefix sub- is very productive in English. It comes from Latin and means under. Examples of words with the prefix include subcontinent, submarine and subterranean. The prefix also has many variants. They are the result of assimilation. Here are words with variants of the prefix sub-:
succint
suffix
suggest
support
surreal
suspend
The process which assimilated the prefix to derive the features is the following:
succint = sub + cint
suffix = sub + fix
suggest = sub + gest
support = sub + port
surreal = sub + real
suspend = sub + pend
The process which derives the prefix variants is reverse assimilation. However, in the case of suspend, the process is spirantization because the plosive /b/ becomes /s/. The variants illustrate the process of assimilation, a very common linguistic process.
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