Derivational morphemes

• Root + Derivational Morpheme  a new word with a

new meaning. (usually change grammatical class)

create new words, listed in the dictionary (ex)

happy vs. Happiness;
•not required by syntax
•not very productive
(ex) dis-like, *dis-hate (ungrammatical)

•in English, can be prefixes or suffixes

Derivational morphemes
• Root + Derivational Morpheme  a new word with a
new meaning. (usually change grammatical class)

change the part of speech or the meaning of a word;

(ex) part-of-speech: us-able (Verb  Adj),
trouble-some (N Adj), happi-ness (Adj  N),
judg-ment (VN), symbol-ize (NV),
happi-ly (Adj  Adv)

(ex) meaning:
anti-feminist, dis-comfort, ex-boyfriend,bi-sexual

(ex) both: use-less (VAdj)

Inflectional morphemes
 Inflectional morphemes have grammatical meaning or
function in the sentence.
 do not change meaning or part of speech, just add extra
grammatical information
 not listed in the dictionary
 in English, only suffixes
 Ex: Bound morphemes s (PLU, GEN) shoe, shoes, shoe’s
 nouns
 Other example
 Bound Morpheme ‘to’  in connection with a verb (‘ an
infinitive with to’)
 Bound Morphemes: Ex. –s, -ed
 He sails the ocean blue.
 He sailed the ocean blue.
Eight English Inflectional Morphemes
 -s third-
person singular •
She wait s at home.
present • She waited at home.
• She is eating the donuts.
 -ed past tense • Mary has eaten the donuts.
 -ing progressive • She ate the donuts.
 -en past • Lisa’s hair is short.
participle • Lisa has shorter hair than Kate.
• Lisa has the shortest hair.
 -s plural
 -’s possessive
 -er
comparative
 -est superlative
The major differences between derivational
and inflectional morphology

  Derivational  Inflectional 

further from
position  closer to stem 
stem 

productive?* (often) no (usually) yes

(often)
meaning? predictable
unpredictable

*Productivity = the extent to which a

word-formation rule can be applied to
new morphemes, to form new words;
https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pxc/nlp/InteractiveNLP/NLP_morph2.html
Affixes: prefixes and suffixes

 Affix: a morpheme that comes at the beginning

(prefix) or the ending (suffix) of a base
morpheme. 
 Note: An affix usually is a morpheme that
cannot stand alone. 
 Examples: -ful, -ly, -ity, -ness. A few
exceptions are able, like, and less.
Affixes: prefixes and suffixes

 Prefix: an affix that comes before a

base morpheme.  The in in the word
inspect is a prefix.
 Suffix: an affix that comes after a
base morpheme.  The s in cats is a
suffix.
Affixes (prefix, suffix) are all
bound morphemes.
Prefixes
Bound morphemes which occur
only before other morphemes.
Examples:
un- (uncover, undo)
dis- (displeased, disconnect),
pre- (predetermine, prejudge)
Suffixes
Bound morphemes which occur 
following other morphemes.
Examples:
-er (singer, performer)
-ist (typist, pianist)
-ly (manly, friendly)
Grammatical morphemes

 What is the difference in meaning

between apple and apples?
 What is the difference in form?
 What does this tell you about these
two words?
Grammatical morphemes
 Words can have an internal structure much
like the syntax of phrases.
 Morphemes such as the, -s, and re- near the
grammatical end of the continuum are called
grammatical morphemes.
 Note that grammatical morphemes include
forms that we can consider to be words like
the, a, and, and of and others that make up
parts of words like –s and -ed.
 Examples.
pencils walked
What are the differences
between each type
of morpheme?
What is the function of
each type of
morpheme?
What is the difference between
content/lexical words and
function/grammatical words?
Content Words

 Content words denote concepts such

as subjects, actions, and ideas (noun,
verb, adjective, adverb)
 Content words are open class words
(new words can be added)
 Example of new words :
Steganography (the art of hiding
information in electronic text)
Function Words

 Function words express Grammatical

Functions (e.g., preposition, article,
conjunctions, pronouns)
 Function words connect the content words
to the larger grammatical context.
 Function words are also called ‘closed
class’ words (no new words added to this
class.)