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Derivation and Inflection
Derivation and Inflection
1. DERIVATION:
1.1. DEFINITION: Derivation is ‘the formation of new words by adding affixes to other words
or morphemes’.
Ex: Movement
The noun movement is derived from the verb move by adding suffix –ment.
1.2. TYPE OF DERIVATIONAL AFFIXES: 2 subgroups:
* Class-changing derivational affixes: change the word class of the words.
Ex: beauty (noun) beautiful (adj)
* Class-maintaining derivational affixes: do not change the word class.
Ex: Re- + write rewrite (v)
Super- + man superman (n)
1.3. MORPHOLOGICAL RULES: In dictionary, new words may appear by applying the
morphological rules.
(1) VERB + -able = ‘able to be VERB-ed’
ACCEPT + -able = ‘able to be ACCEPTed’