It is often said that inflection differs from derivation in terms of productivity. Some rules of word formation are more productive than others. There are derivational affixes in English, as we saw, that are quite dead or nearly so, others that are relatively productive, and some that are fully productive. In contrast, rules of inflection are almost always fully productive: every verb in English, for example, has a progressive form with the suffix -ing, and just about every verb can form a past tense. I say “just about every verb” because there are occasional verbs that native speakers of English (at least of American English) are highly reluctant to use in the past tense: for example, I can use the verb forgo/forego in the present tense (I forego dessert most nights), but for the past tense forwent sounds too odd for most people to use either in spoken or written form (??I forewent dessert last night), and there’s no alternative. Certainly not foregoed!