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).