What is the Difference Between Inflectional and Derivational Morphology?
🆚 Go to Comparative Table 🆚The difference between inflectional and derivational morphology lies in the way they modify words and their function in a sentence.
Inflectional morphology is the study of the modification of words to fit into different grammatical contexts. It involves the addition of morphemes to words to express grammatical relationships such as tense, number, possession, or comparison. Inflectional morphemes do not change the grammatical category (part of speech) of a word. Examples of inflectional morphemes include:
- Plural: -s, -z, -iz (e.g., cats, horses, dogs)
- Tense: -d, -t, -id, -ing (e.g., stopped, running, stirred, waited)
- Possession: -‘s (e.g., Alex's)
- Comparison: -er, -en (e.g., greater, heighten)
Derivational morphology, on the other hand, is the study of the creation of new words by adding morphemes to the base or root of a word. Derivational morphemes often change the part of speech of a word and can either change the meaning or the grammatical category of the word. Examples of derivational morphemes include:
- Change in Meaning: Leaf → Leaflet, Pure → Impure
- Change in Grammatical Category: Help (verb) → Helper (noun), Logic (noun) → Logical (adjective)
In summary, the key difference between inflectional and derivational morphology is that inflectional morphemes modify words to fit into different grammatical contexts without changing their grammatical category, while derivational morphemes create new words by changing the meaning or grammatical category of the original words.
Comparative Table: Inflectional vs Derivational Morphology
The main differences between inflectional and derivational morphology are:
Feature | Inflectional Morphology | Derivational Morphology |
---|---|---|
Position | Closer to the stem | Further from the stem |
Adding | Yes | Yes |
Changes Stem | No | Yes |
Productive | Usually Yes | Often No |
Effect on Usage/Meaning | Predictable | Unpredictable |
Grammatical | Does not change basic meaning or part of speech | Changes meaning or part of speech |
Examples | Plural: -s, -z, -iz | Creation from create |
Tense: -d, -t, -id, -ing | Change in meaning: Leaf → Leaflet | |
Possession: -'s | Change in grammatical category: Help (verb) → Helper (noun) | |
Comparison: -er, -en |
Inflectional morphemes are added to words to assign a particular grammatical property to that word, such as tense, number, possession, or comparison, without changing the basic meaning or part of speech. Examples of inflectional morphemes include plural -s, tense -d, and possessive -'s.
Derivational morphemes, on the other hand, create new words from old ones by changing either the meaning or the grammatical category of the word. Examples of derivational morphemes include -ation in creation and -en in leaflet. Derivational morphemes often produce unpredictable effects on usage and meaning compared to inflectional morphemes.
- Phonology vs Morphology
- Word vs Morpheme
- Morpheme vs Phoneme
- Differentiation vs Morphogenesis
- Morpheme vs Allomorph
- Differentiation vs Derivative
- Traditional Grammar vs Modern Linguistics
- Anatomy vs Morphology
- Derivative vs Differential
- Phonetics vs Phonology
- Histogenesis vs Morphogenesis
- Semantic vs Syntactic
- Language vs Linguistics
- Derivative vs Integral
- Gerund vs Infinitive
- Transitive vs Intransitive Verbs
- Synchronic vs Diachronic Linguistics
- Linguistics vs Applied Linguistics
- Modal vs Auxiliary Verbs