Derivation

Derivation is the process of forming new words, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine. A contrast is intended with the process of inflection, which uses another kind of affix in order to form variants of the same word, as with determine/determine-s/determin-ing/determin-ed. A derivational suffix usually applies to words of one syntactic category and changes them into words of another syntactic category. For example, the English derivational suffix -ly changes adjectives into adverbs (slow slowly).

Examples of English derivational patterns and their suffixes:

adjective-to-noun: -ness (slow slowness)

adjective-to-verb: -ise (modern modernise) in British English or -ize (archaic archaicize) in American English and Oxford spelling adjective-to-adjective: -ish (red reddish)

adjective-to-adverb: -ly (personal personally)

noun-to-adjective: -al (recreation recreational)

noun-to-verb: -fy (glory glorify)

verb-to-adjective: -able (drink drinkable)

verb-to-noun (abstract): -ance (deliver deliverance)

verb-to-noun (concrete): -er (write writer)

Although derivational affixes dont necessarily modify the syntactic category, they modify the meaning of the base. In many cases, derivational affixes change both the syntactic category and the meaning: modern modernize ("to make modern"). The modification of meaning is sometimes predictable: Adjective + ness the state of being (Adjective); (white whiteness).A prefix (write re-write; lord over-lord) will rarely change syntactic category in English. The inflectional prefix un- applies to adjectives (healthy unhealthy), some verbs (do undo), but rarely nouns. A few exceptions are the derivational prefixes en- and be-. En- (em- before labials) is usually used as a transitive marker on verbs, but can also be applied to adjectives and nouns to form transitive verb: circle (verb) encircle (verb); but rich (adj) enrich (verb), large (adj) enlarge (verb), rapture (noun) enrapture (verb), slave (noun) enslave (verb).Note that derivational affixes are bound morphemes. In that, derivation differs from compounding, by which free morphemes are combined (lawsuit, Latin professor). It also differs from inflection in that inflection does not create new lexemes but new word forms (table tables; open opened).Derivation can occur without any change of form, for example telephone (noun) and to telephone. This is known as conversion or zero derivation. Some linguists consider that when a word's syntactic category is changed without any change of form, a null morpheme is being affixed.INFLECTION

Inflection is the process of adding inflectional morphemes (smallest units of meaning) to a word, which indicate grammatical information (for example, case, number, person, gender or voice, mood, tense, or aspect). Derivation is the process of adding derivational morphemes, which create a new word from existing words, sometimes by simply changing grammatical category (for example, changing a noun to a verb).

Words generally are not listed in dictionaries (in which case they would be lexical items) on the basis of their inflectional morphemes. But they often are listed on the basis of their derivational morphemes. For instance, English dictionaries list readable and readability, words with derivational suffixes, along with their root read. However, no traditional English dictionary lists book as one entry and books as a separate entry do they list jump and jumped as two different entries.Languages that add inflectional morphemes to words are sometimes called inflectional languages, which is a synonym for inflected languages. Morphemes may be added in several different ways:

Affixation, or simply adding morphemes onto the word without changing the root,

Reduplication, doubling all or part of a word to change its meaning,

Alternation, exchanging one sound for another in the root (usually vowel sounds, as in the ablaut process found in Germanic strong verbs and the umlaut often found in nouns, among others).

Supra segmental variations, such as of stress, pitch or tone, where no sounds are added or changed but the intonation and relative strength of each sound is altered regularly. For an example, see Initial-stress-derived noun.

Affixing includes prefixing (adding before the base), and suffixing (adding after the base), as well as the much less common infixing (inside) and circum fixing (a combination of prefix and suffix).Inflection is most typically realized by adding an inflectional morpheme (that is, affixation) to the base form (either the root or a stem).