differences-between-inflectional-affixes-and-derivational-affixes.doc

Four short words sum up what has lifted most successful individuals above the crowd: a little bit more.-author-datedifferences-between-inflectional-affixes-and-derivational-affixesThe distinction between inflectional affixes and derivational affixes. The distinction between inflectional affixes and derivational affixes.Inflection indicates grammatical relations by adding inflectional affixes,such as number,person,finiteness,aspect and case;the adding of inflectional affixes will not change the grammatical class of the stems to which they are attached.For instance,(a) number:table/tables,apple/apples.(b)person:talk/talks/talking/talked.(c)case:boy/boy's.And derivation,in its restricted sense,refers to the process of how new words are formed.It can be further divided into two sub-types:the derivational type and the compound type.Therefore,"derivation"here is a cover term both for the derivation itself and for the compound.However,derivation shows a relationship between roots and affixes,it contrast to inflections,can make the word class of the original word either changed or unchanged.Word forms that come from derivation are relatively large and potentially open.The same is true for words ending with the same suffix.So,in English,there is usually one productive inflectional affix per word,but there may also arise multiple derivational affixes.Of course,some words can carry both prefixes and suffixes.On the other hand,the term compound refers to those words that consists of more than one lexical morpheme,or the way to join two separate words to produce a singlenew word.In compound,the lexical morphemes can be of different word classes,like noun compounds,verb compounds,adjective compounds,preposition compounds.Compounds can be further divided into two kinds,the endocentric compound and the exocentric compound.So,we can distinguish inflectional affixes and derivational affixes from mainly four parts:first,inflectional affixes are generally less productive than derivational affixes:Inflectional affixes very often add a minute or delicate grammatical meaning to the stem.Therefore,they serve to produce different forms of a single word.In contrast,derivational affixes often often change the lexical meaning.Second,inflectional affixes don't change the word class of the word they attach to,such as flower,flowers,whereas derivational affixes might or might not,such as the relation between small and smallness for the former,and that between brother and brotherhood for the latter.Third,inflectional affixes are often conditioned by nonsemantic linguistic factors outside the word they attach to but within the phrase or sentence.For example,the choice of likes in "The boy likes to navigate on the internet."is determined by the subject the boy in the sentence,whereas derivational affixes are more often based on simple meaning distinctions.Fourth,in English,inflectional affixes are mostly suffixes,which are always word final.But derivational affixes can be prefixes or suffixes.All in all,we can distinguish inflectional affixes and derivational affixes from their function and position.First,functionally,inflectional affixes do not mark grammatical relations and never create new words while derivational affixes can create new words.Moreover,inflectional affixes do not cause a change in grammatical class while derivational affixes very often but not always cause a change in grammatical class.However,in term of position,inflectional affixes are suffixes while derivational affixes can be suffixes or prefixes.And inflectional affixes are always after derivational affixes if both are present.But derivational affixes are always before inflectional suffixes if both are present.References:Lyons.J,1997.Semantics,Cambridge University Press.George Lakoff and Mark Johnson,2006,Metaphors We Live By.Nattinger.J.Decarrio.J,2000,Lexical phrases and Language teaching.Halliday,M.A.K.2000,An Introduction to Functional Grammar.Beijing:Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.Matthiessen,C.M.I.M and Halliday,M.A.K.2009,Systemic functional grammar:a first step into the theory.Beijing:Higher Eduction Press.Martin,J.R.and White,P.R.2008.The Language of Evaluation:Appraisal in English.Beijing:Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.-