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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 -esThou 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:

Contextual Inflection

Inherent InflectionDerivational