Affixation is the morphological process of deriving a new word by adding an affix,

namely a bound morpheme, to a root or base. (Hamawand, 2011, p.10) It is a process of

forming words by adding affixes to morphemes. Affixation can be categorized into two
types which are derivation and inflection. Inflection is the process by which affixes
combine with roots to indicate basic grammatical categories such as tense or plurality
(e.g. in 'cat-s', 'talk-ed', '-s' and '-ed' are inflectional suffixes). Inflectional morphemes
have a strictly grammatical function.(Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, 2009, p.50) They
never change the grammatical category of the stems to which they are attached.
(Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, 2009, p.50)

Look at the forms of the verbs in these five sentences.

1. I paint the wall.

2. He paints the wall.
3. Jerry painted the wall.
4. Jerry has painted the wall.
5. Jerry is painting the wall.

In sentence (2) - s at the end of the verb is an agreement marker; it signifies that the
subject of the verb is the third person and is singular, and that the verb is the present
tense.

The suffix - ed in sentence 3 indicates past tense. As we see, it doesn’t add any lexical
meaning.

Inflectional morphemes represent relationships between different parts of a sentence. For

example, - s expresses the relationship between the verb and the third person singular
subject while - ing expresses the relationship between the time the utterance is spoken
and the time of the event.
Modern English has only eight bound inflectional affixes.

English Inflectional Morphemes Example

-s third-person singular present She drink-s water.
-ed past tense She paint-ed the wall.
-ing progressive She is drink-ing water.
-en past participle Lily has ent-en the sweets.
-s plural She ate the sweet-s.
-’s possessive Lisa’s book is thick.
-er comparative Lisa is tall-er than Lily.
-est superlative Lisa is the tall-est in the class.

The distinction between inflectional and derivational morphemes is that inflectional

morphemes are productive which they apply freely to nearly every appropriate base
except “irregular” forms such as feet, not foots. Most nouns take an –s inflectional suffix
to form a plural, but only some nouns take the derivational suffix –ize to form a verb, for
example idolize.