3.1.2 Derivational Morphology

While English inflection is relatively simple compared to other languages, derivation in English is quite complex. Recall that derivation is the combination of a word stem with a grammatical morpheme, usually resulting in a word of a different class, often with a meaning hard to predict exactly.

A very common kind of derivation in English is the formation of new nouns, often from verbs or adjectives. This process is called nominalization. For example, the suffix -ation produces nouns from verbs ending often in the suffix -ize (computerize $ \rightarrow $ computerization). Here are examples of some particularly productive English nominalizing suffixes.

Adjectives can also be derived from nouns and verbs. Here are examples of a few suffixes deriving adjectives from nouns or verbs.

Derivation in English is more complex than inflection for a number of reasons. One is that it is generally less productive; even a nominalizing suffix like -ation, which can be added to almost any verb ending in -ize, cannot be added to absolutely every verb. Thus we can't say *eatation or *spellation (we use an asterisk (*) to mark "non-examples" of English). Another is that there are subtle and complex meaning differences among nominalizing suffixes. For example sincerity has a subtle difference in meaning from sincereness.