Comparison of inflection and derivation

Introduction
	Inflection and derivation are the two main processes of word formation. They are two kinds of morphosyntactic operation.

Compare: Inflection and derivation

Inflectional operations create forms that are fully grounded and able to be integrated into discourse, whereas derivational operations create stems that are not necessarily fully grounded and which may still require inflectional operations before they can be integrated into discourse.

Here is a table that compares and contrasts inflection and derivation:

	Inflectional operations	Derivational operations
Lexical category	Do not change the lexical category of the word.	Often change the lexical category of the word
Location	Tend to occur outside derivational affixes.	Tend to occur next to the root
Type of meaning	Contribute syntactically conditioned information, such as number, gender, or aspect.	Contribute lexical meaning
Affixes used	Occur with all or most members of a class of stems.	Are restricted to some, but not all members of a class of stems
Productivity	May be used to coin new words of the same type.	May eventually lose their meaning and usually cannot be used to coin new terms
Grounding	Create forms that are fully-grounded and able to be integrated into discourse.	Create forms that are not necessarily fully grounded and may require inflectional operations before they can be integrated into discourse

Note:

Inflection versus derivation is more a continuum than a strict distinction. Some operations fall in between the prototypical extremes. Operations tend to migrate diachronically from inflection to derivation. (Very rarely do they migrate in the opposite direction.)

Source:

Payne, T. 1997a 26

Context for this page:

Fact module: Comparison of inflection and derivation
In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): Related terms
In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004