Kirsten Mills, 1998http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/caneng/morpheme.htmDerivational morpheme: this type of

morpheme changes the meaning of the word or the part of speech ( word class ) or both. 

Different with inflectional morphemeDerivational morphemes often create new

words.  In English, derivational morphemes can be

prefixes or suffixes.

differences

http://wordformation.blogspot.com/2008/04/derivational-morphemes.html

Sari (1988) says that derivational morphemes are bound

morphemes which derive (create) new words by either

changing the meaning or the part of speech or both.

Bound morpheme = those that function only as parts of

words ( can’t stand on its own )

For example : doubtful, establishment, frighten, teacher

The underscore part = bound morpheme

Derivational MorphemesDerivational morphemes form new words either by changing the meaning of the base to which they

are attached

kind ~ unkind; obey ~ disobey

accurate ~ inaccurate; act ~ react

cigar ~ cigarette; book ~ bookletor by changing the grammatical category (part of speech) of

the base

kind ~ kindly; act ~ active ~ activity

able ~ enable; damp ~ dampen

care ~ careful; dark ~ darkness

Examples of Derivational AffixesPrefix Grammatical

category of base

Grammatical category of output

Example

in- Adj Adj inaccurate

un- Adj Adj unkind

un- V V untie

dis- V V dis-like

dis- Adj Adj dishonest

re- V V rewrite

ex- N N ex-wife

en- N V encourage

Suffix Grammatical category of base

Grammatical category of output

Example

-hood N N child-hood

-ship N N leader-ship

-fy N V beauti-fy

-ic N Adj poet-ic

-less N Adj power-less

-ful N Adj care-ful

-al V N refus-al

-er V N read-er

Another examples :

• In the word happiness, the bound morpheme –

ness creates a new word by changing both the

meaning and the part of speech.

• Happy = adjective

• The derived word happiness = noun.

A similar process uses prefixes instead of suffixes

In English, prefixes typically change the meaning of a word but do not alter its lexical category. Example :

a. MIS- + Verb Verb ( misstep, misclassify )b. UN- + Adjective Adjective ( unkind,

untrue, unfair )c. UN- + Verb Verb ( undo, unchain, uncover

)

Some derivational morphemes create new

meaning but do not change the syntactic

category or part of speech. The word unhappy,

for example, consists of the base happy and the

derivational morpheme (prefix) un-.

Happy = adjective

The derived word unhappy is also an adjective.

In English, such derivational morphemes tend to be added to the ends of words as suffixes

The meaning changes and The relationship can be represent as follow :

a. Noun + -ful Adjective ( beautiful, doubtful )

b. Adjective + -ly Adverb ( truly, beautifully )c. Verb + -ment Noun ( amazement )d. Verb + - er Noun ( teacher, rider )e. Adjective + -en Verb ( brighten, harden )f. Noun + -en Verb ( frighten, hasten )

d. UNDER- +verb Verb ( undercount, underscore )

e. RE- + Verb Verb ( rephrase, rewrite )f. EX- + Noun Noun (ex-husband, ex – wife )

Conclusion Derivational morphemes produce new words

from existing words in two ways :1.They can change the meaning of a word

- example : true untrue paint repaint

2. They can change the lexical category of a word- example : true adjective

truly adverb truth noun