Morphological derivation facts for kids

Morphological derivation is a cool way we make new words in English and other languages! It's like taking an existing word and adding a small part to it, either at the beginning (a prefix) or at the end (a suffix). This often creates a brand new word with a different meaning or even a different job in a sentence.

For example, if you start with the word happy, you can add un- to the front to get unhappy. Or you can add -ness to the end to get happiness. Both unhappy and happiness come from the original word happy.

This is different from inflection. Inflection changes a word to fit grammar rules, but it doesn't create a new word. For instance, determines, determining, and determined are all forms of the word determine. They are not new words, just different versions of the same word.

How New Words Are Made

Making new words through derivation often means adding a prefix or a suffix. These small parts, called affixes, can change a word from one type to another. For example, the English suffix -ly can turn an adjective (like slow) into an adverb (like slowly).

Here are some ways English uses suffixes to make new words:

• Adjective to Noun: Adding -ness (slow → slowness)
• Adjective to Verb: Adding -en (weak → weaken)
• Adjective to Adjective: Adding -ish (red → reddish)
• Adjective to Adverb: Adding -ly (personal → personally)
• Noun to Adjective: Adding -al (recreation → recreational)
• Noun to Verb: Adding -fy (glory → glorify)
• Verb to Adjective: Adding -able (drink → drinkable)
• Verb to Noun (idea): Adding -ance (deliver → deliverance)
• Verb to Noun (person doing it): Adding -er (write → writer)

Sometimes, an affix changes the word's meaning but not its type. For example, adding the prefix re- to write makes rewrite. Both are verbs. Prefixes in English usually don't change the word's type. The prefix un- works with adjectives (healthy → unhealthy) and some verbs (do → undo).

A few prefixes, like en- and be-, can change a word's type. For example, rich (an adjective) becomes enrich (a verb). Slave (a noun) becomes enslave (a verb).

Words Changing Type Without Affixes

Sometimes, a word changes its type without adding any prefix or suffix. This is called conversion or zero derivation. For example, breakfast can be a noun (I ate breakfast) or a verb (I like to breakfast early).

When derivation makes a noun, it's called nominalization. This can happen with an affix (employ → employee) or through conversion (the verb run becomes the noun run). When derivation makes a verb, it's called verbalization (the noun butter becomes the verb to butter).

New Words vs. Word Changes

It's important to see the difference between derivation and inflection.

• Derivation creates a completely new word.
• Inflection creates different grammatical forms of the *same* word.

Think of it this way: inflection usually follows clear rules for almost all words of a certain type. For example, most English verbs add -s for the third person singular (he walks). Derivation is less regular. For instance, you can add -ity to modern (modernity) or dense (density), but not to open or strong.

Sometimes, the same affix can be used for both derivation and inflection. For example, -er can be an inflection when added to an adjective (small → smaller). Here, smaller is still an adjective, just a different form. But when -er is added to a verb (cook → cooker), it's a derivation because cooker is a new word (a noun) that names a thing.

Derivation can change a word's type (like noun to verb), but it doesn't always. For example, uncommon comes from common plus un-. Both common and uncommon are adjectives.

The main difference is that derivation changes both the meaning and the type of a word. Inflection changes how a word is used in a sentence, but not its core meaning.

Derivation and Other Ways to Make Words

Derivation is just one way we make new words. Another way is compounding, where two or more existing words are put together to make a new one (like lawsuit or Latin professor).

Derivational affixes are called bound morphemes. This means they have meaning but can only exist when they are attached to another word. They can't stand alone. This is different from compounding, where whole words (which can stand alone) are combined.

How Common Are These Patterns?

Some derivational patterns are more "productive" than others. A productive pattern is one that is often used to create new words today.

For example, the prefix un- (meaning "not") is very productive in English. If you need to say the opposite of a new word, you're more likely to use un- (like unfriend) than in- (like inaccessible), even though both exist. The same goes for suffixes. The suffix -ist is more productive than -ite when making words from names, even if both can create similar meanings.

See also

• Agglutination
• Collocation
• Inflection
• Nominalization
• Word formation
• Word root