What is the Difference Between Inflectional and Derivational Morphology?

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:

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.