We divided morphology into two domains inflectional and derivational word formation. In the last three chapters, we have concentrated on derivational word formation – types of word formation that create new lexemes. We will turn our attention to inflectional word formation.

Inflection refers to word formation that does not change category and does not create new lexemes, but rather changes the form of lexemes so that they fit into different grammatical contexts. As we’ll see in detail below, grammatical meaning can include information about number (singular vs. plural), person (first, second, third), tense (past, present, future), and other distinctions as well. In this chapter, we will first survey different forms of inflection that can be found both in English and familiar languages, and further afield in the languages of the world, and then look at the ways in which inflection can work.

A word before we start though. We’ve seen that new lexemes can be derived using all sorts of different formal processes of word formation: affixation, compounding, conversion, internal stem change, reduplication, templatic morphology. Inflectional word formation makes use of almost all of these types of word formation rules as well, with the possible exception of compounding. That is, just as languages may have derivational affixes that form new lexemes, they may have inflectional affixes that make those lexemes suited for one grammatical context or another; similarly, languages may have rules of reduplication for either derivational purposes or inflectional purposes. In other words, we might say that form (the type of rule or process) is independent of function (derivation or inflection). Keep this in mind; many of the examples that we’ll use to illustrate points below make use of affixation, but in many cases I could have chosen examples with reduplication or internal stem change as well.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

قسم الشعائر يواصل تحضيراته لتنظيم عمل المواكب الحسينية في زيارة الأربعين

قسم شؤون المعارف يناقش تحضيرات المؤتمر العلمي الأول لمركز تراث البصرة

قسم الشؤون الفكرية يقيم دورة تطويرية لملاكات هيأة المساءلة والعدالة في الأرشفة الإلكترونية

المجمع العلمي ينظم مجلس عزاء في قضاء الهندية

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

نصائح عملية للحد من التعرق المفرط في الصيف

أطباء يحذرون: مكمل غذائي شائع قد يدمر الجهاز العصبي

تحذير طبي من تأثير جانبي "غير متوقع" لحقن التخسيس

حمامات الثلج قد تكون خطيرة وأحيانا مميتة.. ما السبب؟

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

أكبر جدارية شمسية في العالم تدخل موسوعة غينيس.. مشروع ضخم

تسارع دوران الأرض يثير القلق.. وتحذيرات من "كوارث محتملة" ؟

"سوذبيز" تطرح أكبر قطعة من المريخ على الأرض في مزاد علني

أوبن أيه آي تعتزم إطلاق متصفح إنترنت يعمل بالذكاء الاصطناعي

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Mirror in nominal morphology

Appendix 2: Hapax legomena from the Cobuild corpus

Appendix 1: 20th century neologisms from the OED

Morphological Productivity Structural Constraints in English Derivation Conclusion

Verbal derivation and the separation hypothesis

The separation hypothesis

Theoretical implications: Against the separation of form and meaning in morphology

Rival morphological processes 4: Where have all the rivals gone? Summary

Conversion vs. -ize, -ify and -ate

Rival morphological processes -ize vs. -ate

Rival morphological processes -ize vs. -ify

Rival morphological processes 4: Where have all the rivals gone?