Word Formation Questions Medium
In word formation, inflection and derivation are two processes that modify words to create new forms or variations. The main difference between inflection and derivation lies in their purpose and the types of changes they bring to the base word.
Inflection refers to the modification of a word to indicate grammatical features such as tense, number, gender, case, or comparison. It does not change the word's lexical category or meaning. Inflectional changes are typically predictable and follow regular patterns. For example, adding "-s" to the noun "cat" to form "cats" or adding "-ed" to the verb "walk" to form "walked" are inflectional changes.
On the other hand, derivation involves the creation of new words by adding affixes (prefixes or suffixes) to the base word, resulting in a change in meaning or lexical category. Derivational changes are often unpredictable and can significantly alter the word's meaning or part of speech. For instance, adding the prefix "un-" to the adjective "happy" creates the new adjective "unhappy," which has the opposite meaning.
In summary, inflectional changes modify a word's grammatical features without changing its lexical category or meaning, while derivational changes create new words by adding affixes, altering the word's meaning or part of speech.