Inflection vs.

Derivation

Lynn Santelmann, Ph.D.

Ling 4/510 Morphology
2010

Inflection vs. Derivation

• Inflection is often viewed as part of the
syntax.
– rules for inflectional morphology are part of
the syntactic system
• Derivation is considered to be part of the
lexicon
– derivational rules are part of the lexicon

Inflection vs. Derivation?

A number of criteria have been used to
distinguish the two, including:
1. Meaning
2. Whether is changes the category
3. Regularity of meaning
4. Ordering with respect to the root
5. Closed vs. open set

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 Meaning
• Derivational affixes create new lexemes,
i.e. new meanings; inflectional affixes don’t
• Example:
– Nation vs. Nations
– Nation vs. Nationhood

Problems with Meaning

• Problem: Sometimes the same meaning functions
differently across languages
• Example: Causative marking
• Turkish: öl-mek to die
öl-dür-mek to cause to die, i.e. to kill

• Finnish elä-ä to live

elä-ttä-ä to provide for

• In Finnish, the causative -ttä is considered to be

derivational. In Turkish, it's considered to be inflectional.

Change of category
• Derivation causes a word to change
categories; inflection does not
• Example:
– remove (v.) vs. removes (v.)
– remove (v.) vs. removal (n.)

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 Problems with change of category
• Some derivational morphemes change
meaning without changing word class:
– appear disappear
– boy boyhood
– likely unlikely
– Marx Marxist

Problems with change of category

• Problem 2 : Gerunds:
– Evelyn was shooting clay pigeons. (verb)
– His shooting of clay pigeons bothered me.
(shooting = noun)
• So, is the -ing inflectional in the first and
derivational in the second?

Regularity of Meaning
• "All inflectional affixes have a regular
meaning while not all derivational affixes
do." (Bauer, 2003:96)
• Really?
• What about –er, -able, -dom, etc.?

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 Productivity
• Inflection is productive; derivation is semi-
productive
• Example:
– Possessive –s can attach to almost any noun:
couch, book, alcohol, despot, house, Mao,
Rumpelstiltskin
– -ism can only attach to a few nouns, e.g.,
alcoholism, despotism, Maoism, but
*couchism, *Rumpelstiltskinism

Problems with productivity

• Derivation is more productive than
generally thought.
– -er can be added to almost any verb
• Inflection is less productive than is
frequently believed.
– Many languages have ‘defective’ verbs, e.g.,
beware.
– Beware the dog! *He bewares the dog.

Ordering of affixes
• Derivational affixes are nearer the root
than inflectional ones
• Example: Swedish
person-lig-het-er
person-like-ness-pl.
‘personalites’
*personerlighet

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 Problems with affix ordering
• Sometimes, inflectional morphology
appears to occur closer to the root than
the derivational morphology
• Examples:
Kinderchen
Child-ren-dim.
Interest-ed-ly
Exaggerat-ed-ly

Closed vs. Open set of affixes

• Inflection uses a closed set of affixes;
derivation can add new ones
• Examples:
-tastic (from fantastic)
Egotastic
crow-tastic
-ical (from technical)
“I’m having foodical difficulties”

Problems with open vs. closed sets

of affixes
• It’s not clear that all languages can add
derivational affixes.
• Synchronically, addition of inflection is
rare. Diachronically, languages do add
and lose inflectional affixes.
Examples:
English has lost the 2nd person ending -es
Thou knowest
that thou by them mightest war a good warfare

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Problems with open vs. closed sets
of affixes
• English may be adding a new inflectional
morpheme: ‘ve
– They would've come if they'd had time.
– Would've they come if they'd had time?
• Lest you think I am making this up:
– would've they would've cast her if she stayed
overweight?
• http://bitchmagazine.org/post/sunday-nights-big-comedy
– The Doors: What would've they been?
• http://forums.wrestlezone.com/showthread.php?p=2481869

What are we left with?

• "if you meet a new affix for the first time,
you have no means of telling, from this
criterion, whether that affix is inflectional or
derivational." (Bauer, 2003:103)

Option 1: There is no such

distinction
• Many linguists in contemporary
morphological theory have suggested the
inflection vs. derivational distinction is not
valid.
• Discarding the distinction = discarding the
notion of lexeme
• In this view, we have: roots, affixes and
word-forms.

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Option 2: The difference exists, but
not perfectly
• The criteria outline worked in many cases,
but not all.
• The criteria worked better in some
languages than others.
• Maybe we have prototypical inflectional
affixes, and prototypical derivational
affixes.
• Recall: A prototype is the most typical
member of a class across languages.

Prototypes
• Individual languages will have different
types that may diverge from the prototype
to a greater or lesser extent
• If so, then sometimes, like pizza for
breakfast, something might be used in a
way that is not prototypical.

Prototypical Inflection
• A prototypical inflectional affix will
– not change major category
– will have regular meaning
– will be added to every base in the appropriate
part of speech
– it will be ordered after derivational markers
– it will be a member of a small closed set of
affixes
– it will be relevant for the syntax in all models
of syntax

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 Prototypical Derivation
• A prototypical derivational affix will
– create new lexemes
– change major category
– have an irregular meaning on a fairly delicate
analysis of meaning
– come closer to the root than any inflectional
affixes
– belong to a large open set of affixes
– will not play a role in the syntax of a sentence
as a whole

Another view: Inherent vs.

Contextual Inflection
• Maybe the problem is that we need more than 2
categories.
• Should we subdivide inflection into inherent and
contextual inflection?
• Contextual inflection is determined by the
syntactic structure: agreement, gender, case
marking.
• Inherent inflection is not determined by syntax,
though it may be relevant to syntax, e.g.,
Tense/aspect or number

Inherent vs. Contextual Inflection

• Many of the ‘difficulties’ with distinguishing
derivation from inflection came from
inherent inflection, not contextual.

• Maybe we have:
Derivational Inherent Inflection Contextual
Inflection