What Is The Difference Between Inflectional Morpheme and Derivational Morpheme

1|Page
What is the difference between Inflectional Morpheme and

Derivational Morpheme?
Inflectional Morphology:
Infect means change the form of the word in order to indicate difference
of tense, gender, number, case, etc. Inflection is the process of inflection of
action. Inflection is concerned with the changes to an individual lexeme (which
remain the same category) or grammatical reason. Inflectional morphology
deals with the various forms of lexeme. There are some morphemes in English
language which function grammatically or we say that they are grammatical
markers, representing such concepts such as tense, gender, number etc. such
morphemes are called inflectional morpheme. They do not change syntactic or
grammatical category of words or morphemes to complete the words. They are
also called the ending of the words because they are always final in the words.
Or we may say that inflectional morphemes do not produce new words in the
language. But they are used to indicate the different aspects of the grammatical
function of words. They know that if a sentence is singular or plural, if it is in
present or past or if it is in imperative or possessive form. In English all the
inflectional morphemes are suffixes.
 He goes to school (go + es). (Agreement marker)
 Ali sailed to the ocean (sail + ed). (Not agree)
“es” in a sentence at the end of a verb is an agreement marker which
indicates that the subject of the verb is 3 rd person singular. It does not at any
lexical to sentence. Similarly, “ed” in the 2 nd sentence shows that the action has
taken place in past. So, we say inflectional morphemes never change the
grammatical class of a word. They are used to show time, mood or aspect. There
are the following characteristics of the inflectional morphemes.
1. Inflectional morphemes are always final in the words. They are wide
occurrence. They make large words and their distribution in regular.
2. Inflectional morphemes are terminals (ending) and their termination never
change the grammatical class of the root. e.g.
Sing  sings (sing + s)  sung (sing +ed (past participle))
3. An inflectional morpheme occurs at the end of the morpheme and no other
affixation is possible after an inflection. We can say
Develop + s  develops
Develop + ments  developments
Composed by: Mehmood ul Saqlain

M. A. English-II (Govt. P.G.C. Bhimber)
2|Page
But not develop + s + ment. We can’t change after ending. So,

inflectional is the terminal or the last stage. They cannot lie further rewritten.
Whereas derivational morpheme can occur in the middle or the final position.
4. Some grammatical relations can be expressed either inflectionally or
syntactically. e.g.
 He loves books.
 He is lover of books
 I love her.
 She is my beloved.
 He is singer.
 He signs song.
 Nazia’s book is in good position.
 Nazia’s books are in a readable position.
 He plays cricket.
 He is a player of cricket.
Derivational Morphology:
Derivation is the process of forming new words or new morphemes from
an existing word. Derivate is the word formed from another word due to the
process of derivation or an affixes (prefix or suffix) used in the derivation.
There are some morphemes in English that can change the category of
grammatical class of the words such are called derivational morphemes because
whenever they are joined to other words a new word is derived. The study of
these morphemes in sometimes called derivational morphology.
According to John Lyons, Derivation is a morphological process that
results in the formation of new lexemes. Derivation sometimes divided into:
1. Class maintaining derivation
2. Class changing derivation
1. Class Maintaining Derivation:
Class maintaining derivation is the derivation of the new lexemes, which
are of the same form, class as the base from which they are formed. Or we may
pay that there are some morphemes that do not cause any change in the
grammatical class of the word or derived words. e.g.
N = Editor  Sub + Editor Subeditor
N = Wife  ex + wife Ex-wife
Similarly, there are some suffixes whenever, they are attached to other
word or grammatical class of the derived words remain the same. e.g.
Long  long + er  longer

3|Page
Happy  happy + er  happier

America  America + n  American
2. Class Changing Derivation:
Class changing derivation produces words which belong to different
form, class from their bases. Or we may say that there are some morphemes
whenever they are attached to other morphemes they change the class. e.g.
Noun to Adjective:
Honest  honesty
Love  lovely
Brave  bravery etc.
Verb to Noun:
Write write + er  writer
Teach teache + er  teacher
Sing sing + er  singer
Noun to Verb:
Point Pointout
Write Rewrite
Verb to Adjective:
Read Read + able  Readable
Light Light + bulb  Lightbulb
Eat Eat + able  Eatable
Object Objectionable


What Is The Difference Between Inflectional Morpheme and Derivational Morpheme

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What Is The Difference Between Inflectional Morpheme and Derivational Morpheme

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

What Is The Difference Between Inflectional Morpheme and Derivational Morpheme

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

1|Page

What is the difference between Inflectional Morpheme and

Composed by: Mehmood ul Saqlain

But not develop + s + ment. We can’t change after ending. So,

Composed by: Mehmood ul Saqlain

Happy  happy + er  happier

Composed by: Mehmood ul Saqlain

You might also like