What is the difference between inflection and derivation?

Phonetics And Word Formation Questions



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What is the difference between inflection and derivation?

The difference between inflection and derivation lies in their respective roles in word formation. Inflection refers to the modification of a word to indicate grammatical features such as tense, number, case, or gender. It does not change the word's lexical category or meaning. For example, adding "-s" to the noun "cat" to form "cats" indicates pluralization.

On the other hand, derivation involves the creation of new words by adding affixes to a base word, resulting in a change in meaning or lexical category. It can create nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. For instance, adding the prefix "un-" to the adjective "happy" forms the adjective "unhappy," which conveys the opposite meaning.

In summary, inflection modifies a word's grammatical features, while derivation creates new words by altering their meaning or lexical category.