The post, Bound Morphemes: Types and Examples, explains the two major types of Bound Morphemes we have with examples. These two categories of the Bound Morpheme are Derivational and Inflectional morphemes.
Table of Contents
Derivational Morpheme
A derivational morpheme, as the name suggests, derive, create or form another word from the word to which it is added. It is often used to make words of a different grammatical category (word class) from the stem or root or base word. Examples of Derivational Morphemes include:
• Good – adjective
• Goodness – noun
• Care – noun/verb
• Careful/Careless – adjective
• Bad – adjective
• Badly – adverb
• Pay – noun/verb
• Payment – noun
• Warm – adjective
• Warmth – noun
• Accommodate – verb
• Accommodation – noun
• Repudiate – verb
• Repudiation – noun
• Rancour – noun
• Rancorous – adjective
• Happy – adjective
• Happiness – noun etc.
Formation of Derivational Morphemes
As we have established that derivational morphemes derive new words, only the Open Class constituents of the English Parts of Speech, that is nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs can derive new words resulting in another word class. Nouns can derive new words that are adjectives, and vice-versa. Adverbs can derive adjectives and vice-versa; nouns can derive verbs and vice-versa. In all these derivations, the English suffix is very essential and without it, we cannot have any form of derivation. Read about the formation of derivational morphemes with the aid of the English Suffix: Definition, Types and Examples on this page.
Inflectional Morphemes
These are used to indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a word. They carry grammatical information and do not change the meaning of words in which they occur neither do they change their parts of speech. If they are verbs, for instance, they remain as verbs, unlike the derivational morphemes.
Levels of Inflection
Nouns can be inflected for possessive or genitive case. Examples:
• He bashed Olu’s car.
• Can I get David’s number?
• The passenger’s seat is filled up.
They can also be inflected for a marker of plurality. Examples:
• Table – tables
• Knife – knives
• Lorry – lorries
• Tomato – tomatoes
Nouns with same singular and plural forms have zero or unmarked morpheme. Examples:
Sheep + z1 – Sheep
Fish + z1 – Fish
Deer + z1 – Deer
Offspring + z1 – Offspring
Series + z1 – Series
Species + z1 – Species
Verbs can be inflected for 3rd person singular, progressive, tense, aspect.
Adjectives can be inflected for comparative and superlative forms.
NB: All inflectional morphemes that we list above are suffixes.
Morpheme Symbols
Symbols |
Inflection |
Examples |
| z1 | Plurality | boy+ z1 – boys |
| z2 | Genitive or Possessive | John+ z2 – John’s |
| z3 | Third person singular
Simple Present Tense form of a Verb |
go+ z3 – goes
come+ z3 – comes eat+ z3 – eats |
| ‘-ing’ | Progressive/Continuous Aspect form of a Verb | sing+‘-ing’ – singing
run+‘-ing’ – running |
| d1 | Past Tense form of a Verb | go+ d1 |
| d2 | Past Participle/Perfective form of a Verb | go+ d2 – gone
expect+ d2 – expected |
| ‘-er’ | Comparative form of an Adjective | tall+‘-er’ – taller |
| ‘-est’ | Superlative form of an Adjective | fat+‘-est’ – fattest |
Note that most of these inflectional suffixes do not change the word class; they only inflect the words for the grammatical categories listed in the table above.
Bound Morphemes, which we also call affixes in English, include both the derivational and inflectional morphemes. We affix these morphemes to the root/base/stem word either at the initial or the final position. We attach Prefixes at the initial position and suffixes at the final position.
Related Readings
Definitions of Morphemes: Types and Examples
Prefix: Definition, Types with Examples
Types of Morphemes: Free and Bound
Suffix: Definition, Types and Examples
Derivational and Inflectional Morphemes: Differences
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