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