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Understanding Internal Change in Morphology

The document discusses internal change in morphology, also known as inflection. Inflection expresses grammatical information through affixation, such as pluralization, possession, tense, aspect, and agreement. It compares inflectional affixes to derivational affixes. Inflectional affixes do not change the lexical category of words and tend to occur outside of derivational affixes. They contribute syntactic information and can be used productively with most word classes. Derivational affixes often change the lexical category and meaning of words.

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367 views3 pages

Understanding Internal Change in Morphology

The document discusses internal change in morphology, also known as inflection. Inflection expresses grammatical information through affixation, such as pluralization, possession, tense, aspect, and agreement. It compares inflectional affixes to derivational affixes. Inflectional affixes do not change the lexical category of words and tend to occur outside of derivational affixes. They contribute syntactic information and can be used productively with most word classes. Derivational affixes often change the lexical category and meaning of words.

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jjlesterjj
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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  • Internal Change

Internal Change

(Word and Word Formation Processes)

Internal Change in morphology is also known as “Inflection”.

Inflection’s definition:

-variation in the form of a word, typically by means of an affix, that expresses a


grammatical contrast which is obligatory for the stem’s word class in some given
grammatical context.

Inflection includes conjugation of verbs, which comprises such distinctions in verbs as


number, tense, person, mood, and voice (as in English go, goes, went, gone); declension,
which comprises such distinctions in nouns and adjectives as number, case and gender (as
in Spanish muchacha “girl,” muchachas “girls,” muchacho” “boy,” muchachos “boys”);
and the forms that indicate comparison (such as big, bigger, biggest). Characteristic of
inflection are internal word changes, such as English ring, rang, rung, and the use of
affixes that are fused to their roots, having no independent existence or meaning, such as
-ing, in walking, -ed in spelled, and -es in arches.

What information does “inflection” express?


- Grammatical information
And what is grammatical information?
- plural vs singular (plural /-s/)
- possessive marking (possessive /‘s/)
- tense marking (past tense/-ed/, participles)
- aspect marking (progressive /-ing/)
- agreement marking (third person /-s/)
- comparative/ superlative marking

Inflection is predominantly expressed by affixation in English.

So how do we distinguish an inflectional affix from a derivational one?


a) Category and meaning change:
-Very often (though not always) derivation changes the category of the base while
inflection never does that.
-Whereas derivation changes the meaning of the base, inflection does not (‘books’ still
refers to the same type of thing as ‘book’ does, but ‘King’ refers to something
different than ‘kingdom’)
b) Order
Derivation applies before inflection:

America – America-n – American-ize – Americanize-d

derivational inflectional

c) Productivity
Inflectional affixes can usually be attached to a whole word class (with very few
exceptions)
Derivational affixes can usually only be attached to a small sub-class of a whole word
class:
Plural /-s/: can apply to almost all nouns
-ful can be added to only a subset of all nouns:
hope-ful, dread-ful, faith-ful
*poison-ful, *president-ful, *nation-ful

Inflection versus derivation:

red: derivation green: inflection

a) The farmer’s cows escaped.


b) It was raining.
c) Those socks are inexpensive
d) Jim needs the newer copy.
e) The stongest rower continued.
f) The pitbull has bitten the cyclist.
g) She quickly closed the book.
h) The alphabet-iz-ation went well.
Here is a table that compares and contrasts inflection and derivation:

Inflectional operations Derivational operations


Lexical Do not change the lexical Often change the lexical category of the
category category of the word. word
Location Tend to occur outside Tend to occur next to the root
derivational affixes.
Type of Contribute syntactically Contribute lexical meaning
meaning conditioned information, such
as number, gender, or aspect.
Affixes used Occur with all or most Are restricted to some, but not all members
members of a class of stems. of a class of stems
Productivity May be used to coin new May eventually lose their meaning and
words of the same type. usually cannot be used to coin new terms
Grounding Create forms that are fully- Create forms that are not necessarily fully
grounded and able to be grounded and may require inflectional
integrated into discourse. operations before they can be integrated into
discourse

Internal Change (Word and Word Formation Processes) Internal Change in morphology is also known as “Inflection”. Inflection’s
b) Order Derivation applies before inflection: America – America-n – American-ize – Americaniz
Here is a table that compares and contrasts inflection and derivation: Inflectional operations Derivational operations Lex

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