What is derivation?

Derivation is the formation of a new word or inflectable stem from another word or stem. It typically occurs by the addition of an affix.

The derived word is often of a different word class from the original. It may thus take the inflectional affixes of the new word class.

In contrast to inflection, derivation

• is not obligatory
• typically produces a greater change of meaning from the original form, and
• is more likely to result in a form which has a somewhat idiosyncratic meaning.
• often changes the grammatical category of a root

• Kindness is derived from kind.
• Joyful is derived from joy.
• Amazement is derived from amaze.
• Speaker is derived from speak.
• National is derived from nation.

Derivational operations

• tend to be idiosyncratic and non-productive
• do not occur in well-defined 'paradigms,' and

• are 'optional' insofar as they

  • shape the basic semantic content of roots and
  • are not governed by some other syntactic operation or element.

• What is a phonological derivation?

Here are some kinds of derivational operations:

• Operations that change the grammatical category of a root

  Example: Nominalization (English)

  Verbs and adjectives can be turned into nouns: amaze >amazement, speak >speaker, perform >performance, soft >softness, warm >warmth

• Operations that change the valence (transitivity) of a root, and

  Example: Causation (Swahili)

  kula 'to eat' > kulisha, 'to feed'

• What is a morphosyntactic operation?

• Comparison of inflection and derivation
• What is a derivational affix?

Crystal 1985 89

Mish 1991 342

Hartmann and Stork 1972 62

Bybee 1985 81–82, 99

Payne, T. 1997a 25–26

Context for this page:

• Concept module: derivation
• In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): D
• 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

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