Differences between Inflection and Derivation

What’s the different between inlection and derivation?

Let’s take a look at these examples :

-          Tree-s : consist of two morphemes Tree and S

Tree is a noun and S as the plural

Walk-ed : consist of two morphemes as well walk and ed

Walk is a verb and Ed is past tense

The other two examples are quiet different

-          Write-r : consist of two morphemes write and R

Write is a verb and r is a bound morpheme

So, the verb (write) turn into a noun (writer) , it changes the word class

-          Un-likely : consist of Un , Like and Ly , but in this case, unlikely I am just going to focus on these two elements, Un and likely

Unlikely similarly changes meaning .

So likely is an adjective but Unlikely is still an adjective , but the meaning is now the oppsite

So lets start with the first , Grammatical Morphemes :

1.      Inflection

a.       Do not changes the meaning

b.      Add grammatical information

o   Past tense (ed) such as work-ed . studi-ed

o   Plural (s) such as boy-s , girl-s , pen-s

o   Other categories

And the second is the lexical meaning :

2.      Derivation (always changes the meaning of the word they attached to)

o   Always change the meaning

Likely -> unlikely (changes something positive to something negative)

Write -> writer (changes an action to a person whos doing the action)

o   May changes the word class

Write (verb) changes an action to a person whos doing the action

Writer (Noun)