Module 1 Concepts: Derivational Morpheme

Morphemes consist of bases and affixes, each of which have meaning. Words can be made up of just a base, or a base plus one or more affixes. Morphemes are divided into derivational morphemes and inflectional morphemes. A derivation is the formation of words by adding prefixes and suffixes to existing words and bases.

A derivational morpheme is the prefix or suffix used to create one word from another. For example, derivational morphemes can transform a word like friend in the following ways:

Nouns

• Friendship

• Unfriendliness

Adjectives

• unfriendly

• friendless

Verb

• befriend

As such, there are noun-making morphemes, verb-making morphemes, adjective-making morphemes,, and adverb-making morphemes.

Some common noun-making morphemes include the following suffixes:

Suffix	Meaning	Example
-acy	state or quality	privacy
-al	act or process of	refusal
-ance, -ence	state or quality of	maintenance, eminence
-dom	place or state of being	freedom, kingdom
-er, -or	one who	trainer, protector
-ism	doctrine, belief	communism
-ist	one who	chemist
-ity, -ty	quality of	veracity
-ment	condition of	argument
-sion, -tion	state of being	concession, transition

This is only a partial list, of course, but should give you an introduction to how derivational morphemes function.

Some common verb-making morphemes include the following suffixes:

Suffix	Meaning	Example
-ate	become	eradicate
-en	become	enlighten
-ify, -fy	make or become	terrify
-ize, -ise	become	civilize

This is only a partial list, of course, but should give you an introduction to how derivational morphemes function.

Some common adjective-making morphemes include the following suffixes:

Suffix	Meaning	Example
-able	being 'able'	movable, portable
-al	relating to	global, manual
-en	made of	golden, wooden
-ful	full of	hopeful, wishful
-ic	characteristic of	domestic
-ive	tending to	sensitive, selective
-less	lack of, without	endless, powerless
-ous	full of	enormous, mysterious
-y	state, having	windy, slowly

This is only a partial list, of course, but should give you an introduction to how derivational morphemes function.

The most common adverb-making morpheme is the suffix -ly, which primarily changes adjectives to adverbs:

• quickly

• happily

• fiercely

• largely

• usefully

• equally