Derivational types of word

According
to their derivational structure words fall into two large classes:
simple, non-derived words or simplexes and derivatives or complexes.
Complexes are classified according to the type of the underlying
derivational pattern into: derived and compound words. Derived words
fall into affixational words, which in their turn must be classified
into suffixal and prefixal derivatives, and conversions. Each
derivational type of words is unequally represented in different
parts of speech.

Comparing
the role each of these structural type of words plays in the language
we can easily perceive that the clue to the correct understanding of
their comparative value lies in a careful consideration of 1)
the
importance of each type in the existing word-stock and 2)
their
frequency value in actual speech. Of the two factors frequency is by
far the most important. According to the available word counts in
different parts of speech, we find that derived words numerically
constitute the largest class of words in the existing word-stock,
derived nouns comprise approximately 67%
of
the total number and adjectives about 86%,
whereas

104

compound
nouns make about 15%
and
adjectives only about 4%.
Simple
words come to 18%
in
nouns, i.e. a trifle more than the number of compound words; in
adjectives simple words come to approximately 12%.¹
But
if we now consider the frequency value of these types of words in
actual speech, we cannot fail to see that simple words occupy a
predominant place in English. According to recent frequency counts,
about 60%
of
the total number of nouns and 62%
of
the total number of adjectives in current use are simple words. Of
the total number of adjectives and nouns, derived words comprise
about 38%
and
37%
respectively
while compound words comprise an insignificant 2%
in
nouns and 0.2%
in
adjectives.²
Thus it is the simple, non-derived words that constitute the
foundation and the backbone of the vocabulary and that are of
paramount importance in speech. It should also be mentioned that
non-derived words are characterised by a high degree of collocability
and a complex variety of meanings in contrast with words of other
structural types whose semantic structures are much poorer. Simple
words also serve as basic parent forms motivating all types of
derived and compound words. At the same time it should be pointed out
that new words that appear in the vocabulary are mostly words of
derived and compound structure.

§ 13. Historical Changeability of Word-Structure

Neither
the morphemic nor the derivational structure of the word remains the
same but is subject to various changes in the course of time. Changes
in the phonetic and semantic structure and in the stress pattern of
polymorphic words may bring about a number of changes in the
morphemic and derivational structure. Certain morphemes may become
fused together or may be lost altogether. As a result of this
process, known as the process of simplification, radical changes in
the structure of the word may take place: root-morphemes may turn
into affixational or semi-affixational morphemes, polymorphic words
may become monomorphic, compound words may be transformed into
derived or even simple words. There is no doubt, for instance, that
the Modern English derived noun friendship
goes
back to the Old English compound frēōndscipe
in
which the component scipe
was
a root-morpheme and a stem of the independently functioning word. The
present-day English suffixes -hood,
-dom, -like are
also known to have developed from root-morphemes. The noun husband
is
a simple monomorphic word in Modern English, whereas in Old English
it was a compound word consisting of two bases built on two stems
hus-bond-a.

Sometimes
the spelling of some Modern English words as compared with their
sound-form reflects the changes these words have undergone. The
Modern English word cupboard
judging
by its sound-form [‘kAbэd]
is a monomorphic non-motivated simple word. Yet its spelling betrays
its earlier history. It consisted of two bases represented by two
monomorphic stems [kAр]
and
[bo:d] and was pronounced [‘kAp,bod]; it signified

¹Though
no figures for verbs are available we have every reason to believe
that they present a similar relation.

² We
may presume that a similar if not a more striking difference is true
of verbs, adverbs and all form words.

105

‘a
board to put cups on’; nowadays, however, having been structurally
transformed into a simple word, it denotes neither cup
nor
board
as
may be seen from the phrases like* boot
cupboard, a clothes cupboard. A
similar course of development is observed in the words blackguard
[‘blæg-a:d]
traced to [‘blæk,ga:d],
handkerchief
[‘hæŋkэt∫if]
that once was [‘hænd,kэ:t∫if],
etc.

In
the process of historical development some word-structures underwent
reinterpretation without radical changes in their phonemic shape;
there are cases when simple root-words came to be understood as
derived consisting of two ICs represented by two individual items,
e.g. beggar,
chauffeur, editor. The
reinterpretation of such words led to the formation of simple verbs
like to
edit, to beg, etc.

WORD STRUCTURE IN MODERN ENGLISH

  I.   The morphological structure of a word. Morphemes. Types of morphemes. Allomorphs.

II.   Structural types of words.

III.   Principles of morphemic analysis.

  IV.   Derivational level of analysis. Stems. Types of stems. Derivational types of words.

I.   The morphological structure of a word. Morphemes. Types of Morphemes.  Allomorphs.

There are two levels of approach to the study of word- structure: the level of morphemic analysis and the level of derivational or word-formation analysis.

Word is the principal and basic unit of the language system, the largest on the morphologic and the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis.

It has been universally acknowledged that a great many words have a composite nature and are made up of morphemes, the basic units on the morphemic level, which are defined as the smallest indivisible two-facet language units.

The term morpheme is derived from Greek morphe “form ”+ -eme. The Greek suffix –eme has been adopted by linguistic to denote the smallest unit or the minimum distinctive feature.

The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of form. A form in these cases a recurring discrete unit of speech. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of single morpheme. Even a cursory examination of the morphemic structure of English words reveals that they are composed of morphemes of different types: root-morphemes and affixational morphemes. Words that consist of a root and an affix are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word building known as affixation (or derivation).

The root-morpheme is the lexical nucleus of the word; it has a very general and abstract lexical meaning common to a set of semantically related words constituting one word-cluster, e.g. (to) teach, teacher, teaching. Besides the lexical meaning root-morphemes possess all other types of meaning proper to morphemes except the part-of-speech meaning which is not found in roots.

Affixational morphemes include inflectional affixes or inflections and derivational affixes. Inflections carry only grammatical meaning and are thus relevant only for the formation of word-forms. Derivational affixes are relevant for building various types of words. They are lexically always dependent on the root which they modify. They possess the same types of meaning as found in roots, but unlike root-morphemes most of them have the part-of-speech meaning which makes them structurally the important part of the word as they condition the lexico-grammatical class the word belongs to. Due to this component of their meaning the derivational affixes are classified into affixes building different parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs.

Roots and derivational affixes are generally easily distinguished and the difference between them is clearly felt as, e.g., in the words helpless, handy, blackness, Londoner, refill, etc.: the root-morphemes help-, hand-, black-, London-, fill-, are understood as the lexical centers of the words, and –less, -y,      -ness, -er, re- are felt as morphemes dependent on these roots.

 Distinction is also made of free and bound morphemes.

Free morphemes coincide with word-forms of independently functioning words. It is obvious that free morphemes can be found only among roots, so the morpheme boy- in the word boy is a free morpheme; in the word undesirable there is only one free morpheme desire-; the word pen-holder has two free morphemes  pen- and hold-. It follows that bound morphemes are those that do not coincide with separate word- forms, consequently all derivational morphemes, such as –ness, -able, -er are bound. Root-morphemes may be both free and bound. The morphemes theor- in the words theory, theoretical, or horr- in the words horror, horrible, horrify; Angl- in  Anglo-Saxon; Afr- in Afro-Asian are all bound roots as there are no identical word-forms.

It should also be noted that morphemes may have different phonemic shapes. In the word-cluster please , pleasing , pleasure , pleasant the phonemic shapes of the word stand in complementary distribution or in alternation with each other. All the representations of the given morpheme, that manifest alternation are called allomorphs/or morphemic variants/ of that morpheme.

The combining form allo- from Greek allos “other” is used in linguistic terminology to denote elements of a group whose members together consistute a structural unit of the language (allophones, allomorphs). Thus, for example, -ion/ -tion/ -sion/ -ation are the positional variants of the same suffix, they do not differ in meaning or function but show a slight difference in sound form depending on the final phoneme of the preceding stem. They are considered as variants of one and the same morpheme and called its allomorphs.

Allomorph is defined as a positional variant of a morpheme occurring in a specific environment and so characterized by complementary description.

Complementary distribution is said to take place, when two linguistic variants cannot appear in the same environment.

Different morphemes are characterized by contrastive distribution, i.e. if they occur in the same environment they signal different meanings. The suffixes –able and –ed, for instance, are different morphemes, not allomorphs, because adjectives in –able mean “ capable of beings”.

Allomorphs will also occur among prefixes. Their form then depends on the initials of the stem with which they will assimilate.

Two or more sound forms of a stem existing under conditions of complementary distribution may also be regarded as allomorphs, as, for instance, in long a: length n.

II. Structural types of words.

The morphological analysis of word- structure on the morphemic level aims at splitting the word into its constituent morphemes – the basic units at this level of analysis – and at determining their number and types. The four types (root words, derived words, compound, shortenings) represent the main structural types of Modern English words, and conversion, derivation and composition the most productive ways of word building.

According to the number of morphemes words can be classified into monomorphic and polymorphic. Monomorphic or root-words consist of only one root-morpheme, e.g. small, dog, make, give, etc. All polymorphic word fall into two subgroups:  derived words and compound words – according to the number of root-morphemes they have. Derived words are composed of one root-morpheme and one or more derivational morphemes, e.g. acceptable, outdo, disagreeable, etc. Compound words are those which contain at least two root-morphemes, the number of derivational morphemes being insignificant. There can be both root- and derivational morphemes in compounds as in pen-holder, light-mindedness, or only root-morphemes as in lamp-shade, eye-ball, etc.

These structural types are not of equal importance. The clue to the correct understanding of their comparative value lies in a careful consideration of: 1)the importance of each type in the existing wordstock, and 2) their frequency value in actual speech. Frequency is by far the most important factor. According to the available word counts made in different parts of speech, we find that derived words numerically constitute the largest class of words in the existing wordstock; derived nouns comprise approximately 67% of the total number, adjectives about 86%, whereas compound nouns make about 15% and adjectives about 4%. Root words come to 18% in nouns, i.e. a trifle more than the number of compound words; adjectives root words come to approximately 12%.

But we cannot fail to perceive that root-words occupy a predominant place. In English, according to the recent frequency counts, about 60% of the total number of nouns and 62% of the total number of adjectives in current use are root-words. Of the total number of adjectives and nouns, derived words comprise about 38% and 37% respectively while compound words comprise an insignificant 2% in nouns and 0.2% in adjectives. Thus it is the root-words that constitute the foundation and the backbone of the vocabulary and that are of paramount importance in speech. It should also be mentioned that root words are characterized by a high degree of collocability and a complex variety of meanings in contrast with words of other structural types whose semantic structures are much poorer. Root- words also serve as parent forms for all types of derived and compound words.

III. Principles of morphemic analysis.

In most cases the morphemic structure of words is transparent enough and individual morphemes clearly stand out within the word. The segmentation of words is generally carried out according to the method of Immediate and Ultimate Constituents. This method is based on the binary principle, i.e. each stage of the procedure involves two components the word immediately breaks into. At each stage these two components are referred to as the Immediate Constituents. Each Immediate Constituent at the next stage of analysis is in turn broken into smaller meaningful elements. The analysis is completed when we arrive at constituents incapable of further division, i.e. morphemes. These are referred to Ultimate Constituents.

A synchronic morphological analysis is most effectively accomplished by the procedure known as the analysis into Immediate Constituents. ICs are the two meaningful parts forming a large linguistic unity.

The method is based on the fact that a word characterized by morphological divisibility is involved in certain structural correlations. To sum up: as we break the word we obtain at any level only ICs one of which is the stem of the given word. All the time the analysis is based on the patterns characteristic of the English vocabulary. As a pattern showing the interdependence of all the constituents segregated at various stages, we obtain the following formula:

un+ { [ ( gent- + -le ) + -man ] + -ly}

Breaking a word into its Immediate Constituents we observe in each cut the structural order of the constituents.

A  diagram presenting the four cuts described looks as follows:

1. un- / gentlemanly

2.   un- / gentleman / — ly

3.   un- / gentle / — man / — ly

4.   un- / gentl / — e / — man / — ly

A similar analysis on the word-formation level showing not only the morphemic constituents of the word but also the structural pattern on which it is built.

The analysis of word-structure at the morphemic level must proceed to the stage of Ultimate Constituents. For example, the noun friendliness is first segmented into the ICs: [frendlı-] recurring in the adjectives friendly-looking and friendly and [-nıs] found in a countless number  of nouns, such as unhappiness, blackness, sameness, etc. the IC [-nıs] is at the same time an UC of the word, as it cannot be broken into any smaller elements possessing both sound-form and meaning. Any further division of –ness would give individual speech-sounds which denote nothing by themselves. The IC [frendlı-] is next broken into the ICs [-lı] and [frend-] which are both UCs of the word.

Morphemic analysis under the method of Ultimate Constituents may be carried out on the basis of two principles: the so-called root-principle and affix principle.

According to the affix principle the splitting of the word into its constituent morphemes is based on the identification of the affix within a set of words, e.g. the identification of the suffix –er leads to the segmentation of words singer, teacher, swimmer into the derivational morpheme – er  and the roots teach- , sing-, drive-.

According to the root-principle, the segmentation of the word is based on the identification of the root-morpheme in a word-cluster, for example the identification of the root-morpheme agree-  in the words agreeable, agreement, disagree.

As a rule, the application of these principles is sufficient for the morphemic segmentation of words.

However, the morphemic structure of words in a number of cases defies such analysis, as it is not always so transparent and simple as in the cases mentioned above. Sometimes not only the segmentation of words into morphemes, but the recognition of certain sound-clusters as morphemes become doubtful which naturally affects the classification of words. In words like retain, detain, contain or  receive, deceive, conceive, perceive the sound-clusters [rı-], [dı-] seem to be singled quite easily, on the other hand, they undoubtedly have nothing in common with the phonetically identical prefixes  re-, de- as found in words re-write, re-organize, de-organize, de-code. Moreover, neither the sound-cluster [rı-] or [dı-], nor the [-teın] or [-sı:v] possess any lexical or functional meaning of their own. Yet, these sound-clusters are felt as having a certain meaning because [rı-] distinguishes retain from detain and [-teın] distinguishes retain from receive.

It follows that all these sound-clusters have a differential and a certain distributional meaning as their order arrangement point to the affixal status of re-, de-, con-, per- and makes one understand —tain and –ceive as roots. The differential and distributional meanings seem to give sufficient ground to recognize these sound-clusters as morphemes, but as they lack lexical meaning of their own, they are set apart from all other types of morphemes and are known in linguistic literature as pseudo- morphemes. Pseudo- morphemes of the same kind  are also encountered in words like rusty-fusty.

IV.   Derivational level of analysis. Stems. Types of Stems. Derivational types of word.

The morphemic analysis of words only defines the constituent morphemes, determining their types and their meaning but does not reveal the hierarchy of the morphemes comprising the word. Words are no mere sum totals of morpheme, the latter reveal a definite, sometimes very complex interrelation. Morphemes are arranged according to certain rules, the arrangement differing in various types of words and particular groups within the same types. The pattern of morpheme arrangement underlies the classification of words into different types and enables one to understand how new words appear in the language. These relations within the word and the interrelations between different types and classes of words are known as derivative or word- formation relations.

The analysis of derivative relations aims at establishing a correlation between different types and the structural patterns words are built on. The basic unit at the derivational level is the stem.

The stem is defined as that part of the word which remains unchanged throughout its paradigm, thus the stem which appears in the paradigm (to) ask ( ), asks, asked, asking is ask-; thestem of the word singer ( ), singer’s, singers, singers’ is singer-. It is the stem of the word that takes the inflections which shape the word grammatically as one or another part of speech.

The structure of stems should be described in terms of IC’s analysis, which at this level aims at establishing the patterns of typical derivative relations within the stem and the derivative correlation between stems of different types.

There are three types of stems: simple, derived and compound.

Simple stems are semantically non-motivated and do not constitute a pattern on analogy with which new stems may be modeled. Simple stems are generally monomorphic and phonetically identical with the root morpheme. The derivational structure of stems does not always coincide with the result of morphemic analysis. Comparison proves that not all morphemes relevant at the morphemic level are relevant at the derivational level of analysis. It follows that bound morphemes and all types of pseudo- morphemes are irrelevant to the derivational structure of stems as they do not meet requirements of double opposition and derivative interrelations. So the stem of such words as retain, receive, horrible, pocket, motion, etc. should be regarded as simple, non- motivated stems.

Derived stems are built on stems of various structures though which they are motivated, i.e. derived stems are understood on the basis  of the derivative relations between their IC’s and the correlated stems. The derived stems are mostly polymorphic in which case the segmentation results only in one IC that is itself a stem, the other IC being necessarily a derivational affix.

Derived stems are not necessarily polymorphic.

Compound stems are made up of two IC’s, both of which are themselves stems, for example match-box, driving-suit, pen-holder, etc. It is built by joining of two stems, one of which is simple, the other derived.

In more complex cases the result of the analysis at the two levels sometimes seems even to contracted one another.

The derivational types of words are classified according to the structure of their stems into simple, derived and compound words.

Derived words are those composed of one root- morpheme and one or more derivational morpheme.

Compound words contain at least two root- morphemes, the number of derivational morphemes being insignificant.

Derivational compound is a word formed by a simultaneous process of composition and derivational.

Compound words proper are formed by joining together stems of word already available in the language.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Morphological derivation, in linguistics, is the process of forming a new word from an existing word, often by adding a prefix or suffix, such as un- or -ness. For example, unhappy and happiness derive from the root word happy.

It is differentiated from inflection, which is the modification of a word to form different grammatical categories without changing its core meaning: determines, determining, and determined are from the root determine.^[1]

Derivational patterns[edit]

Derivational morphology often involves the addition of a derivational suffix or other affix. Such an affix usually applies to words of one lexical category (part of speech) and changes them into words of another such category. For example, one effect of the English derivational suffix -ly is to change an adjective into an adverb (slow → slowly).

Here are examples of English derivational patterns and their suffixes:

• adjective-to-noun: -ness (slow → slowness)
• adjective-to-verb: -en (weak → weaken)
• adjective-to-adjective: -ish (red → reddish)
• adjective-to-adverb: -ly (personal → personally)
• noun-to-adjective: -al (recreation → recreational)
• noun-to-verb: -fy (glory → glorify)
• verb-to-adjective: -able (drink → drinkable)
• verb-to-noun (abstract): -ance (deliver → deliverance)
• verb-to-noun (agent): -er (write → writer)

However, derivational affixes do not necessarily alter the lexical category; they may change merely the meaning of the base and leave the category unchanged. A prefix (write → re-write; lord → over-lord) rarely changes the lexical category in English. The prefix un- applies to adjectives (healthy → unhealthy) and some verbs (do → undo) but rarely to nouns. A few exceptions are the derivational prefixes en- and be-. En- (replaced by em- before labials) is usually a transitive marker on verbs, but it can also be applied to adjectives and nouns to form transitive verbs: circle (verb) → encircle (verb) but rich (adj) → enrich (verb), large (adj) → enlarge (verb), rapture (noun) → enrapture (verb), slave (noun) → enslave (verb).

When derivation occurs without any change to the word, such as in the conversion of the noun breakfast into the verb to breakfast, it’s known as conversion, or zero derivation.

Derivation that results in a noun may be called nominalization. It may involve the use of an affix (such as with employ → employee), or it may occur via conversion (such as with the derivation of the noun run from the verb to run). In contrast, a derivation resulting in a verb may be called verbalization (such as from the noun butter to the verb to butter).

Derivation and inflection[edit]

Derivation can be contrasted with inflection, in that derivation can produce a new word (a distinct lexeme) but isn’t required to change this, whereas inflection produces grammatical variants of the same word.

Generally speaking, inflection applies in more or less regular patterns to all members of a part of speech (for example, nearly every English verb adds -s for the third person singular present tense), while derivation follows less consistent patterns (for example, the nominalizing suffix -ity can be used with the adjectives modern and dense, but not with open or strong). However, it is important to note that derivations and inflections can share homonyms, that being, morphemes that have the same sound, but not the same meaning. For example, when the affix -er, is added to an adjective, as in small-er, it acts as an inflection, but when added to a verb, as in cook-er, it acts as a derivation.^[2]

As mentioned above, a derivation can produce a new word (or new part of speech) but is not required to do so. For example, the derivation of the word «common» to «uncommon» is a derivational morpheme but doesn’t change the part of speech (adjective).

An important distinction between derivational and inflectional morphology lies in the content/function of a listeme^{[clarification needed]}. Derivational morphology changes both the meaning and the content of a listeme, while inflectional morphology doesn’t change the meaning, but changes the function.

A non-exhaustive list of derivational morphemes in English: -ful, -able, im-, un-, -ing, -er

A non-exhaustive list of inflectional morphemes in English: -er, -est, -ing, -en, -ed, -s

Derivation and other types of word formation[edit]

Derivation can be contrasted with other types of word formation such as compounding. For full details see Word formation.

Note that derivational affixes are bound morphemes – they are meaningful units, but can only normally occur when attached to another word. In that respect, derivation differs from compounding by which free morphemes are combined (lawsuit, Latin professor). It also differs from inflection in that inflection does not create new lexemes but new word forms (table → tables; open → opened).

Productivity[edit]

Derivational patterns differ in the degree to which they can be called productive. A productive pattern or affix is one that is commonly used to produce novel forms. For example, the negating prefix un- is more productive in English than the alternative in-; both of them occur in established words (such as unusual and inaccessible), but faced with a new word which does not have an established negation, a native speaker is more likely to create a novel form with un- than with in-. The same thing happens with suffixes. For example, if comparing two words Thatcherite and Thatcherist, the analysis shows that both suffixes -ite and -ist are productive and can be added to proper names, moreover, both derived adjectives are established and have the same meaning. But the suffix -ist is more productive and, thus, can be found more often in word formation not only from proper names.

See also[edit]

• Agglutination
• Collocation
• Inflection
• Nominalization
• Word formation
• Word root

References[edit]

• Speech and Language Processing, Jurafsky, D. & Martin J.,H.

Обратная связь

Derivationally all the words in a language are subdivided into simple (non derived) words (or simplexes), and derived (or complexes, orderivatives).The majority of the word-stock in any language is made up of derived words.

The most common source lexeme for a derived word in English is nouns (child (n)– childhood (n) – childless (adj). Adjectives and verbs are quite active in deriving new words, too (green (adj)—greenish (adj) – greenness (n); write (v) – write off (v)—writer (n). The least likely sources for a derived word are adverbs and the lexemes of minor word classes like articles and pronouns.

In English there are three major types of word-formation: zero derivation, or conversion, affixation and composition, or compounding. There are also some minor types of word-formation: back-formation, shortening, blending, extension of proper names, and some others.

Derivatives may be qualified according to the latest type of word-formation process and the total number of derivational acts that were necessary for their formation. The number of derivational processes acts that took place in a word forms its degree of derivation.

The monomorphic words read, dead, table, and even polymorphic words of conditional and defective types of segmentability like deceive or hamlet are simplexes.They arenon-derivedfrom the point of view of modern English because their derivational processes have either been deleted, forgotten and are no longer perceived, or their derivation has never taken place in English. The number and character of borrowed words with similar segments is not grounds for perceiving them as derived.

The nouns reader (v+-er→N) and reading (v+-ing→N) as well as the adjective readable (v+-able→Adj) are complexes: they may be qualified as suffixational derivatives of the first degree of derivation (v+suf). The verb reread is a prefixational derivative of the first degree of derivation (prf+v).

The noun reading-lamp ‘a lamp to give light for reading by’ is a compound of the second degree of derivation. There are two derivational processes — suffixation and composition, the last being composition — and it can be seen in the derivational pattern of the word: (v+-ing)+n→N. Care should be taken of the word reading which is marked in dictionaries as a noun and that means that a word-formation process took place here. In contrast, a dancing-girl is a derivative of the first degree because dancing is only a form of the word to dance, not a separate word, and it is not registered in the dictionary as a special entry.

The adjective unpredictable, according to its derivational pattern un-+(v+-able)→Adj, is a prefixational derivative of the second degree. Though the number of affixes in un-+pre-+-dict-+able is greater than in the word (read-+ing)+lamp discussed above, on the derivational level of analysis these words may be regarded to be equal in degrees of derivation because the derivational base predict is a simplex in modern English.

The noun aircraft-carrier isa compound derivative of the third degree,the last derivational process being composition, and the previous two derivational processes being composition and suffixation: (n+n)+(v+-er)→N.

The noun denationalization {de- +[(n+—al)+-ize]}+-tion→N appeared as the result of four acts of derivational processes and may be qualified as asuffixational derivative of the fourth degree of derivation. Since the prefix de- may also be attached to the noun with the suffix –tion, this word may also be qualified as a prefixational derivative of the fourth degree of derivation de+{[(n+—al)+-ize]}+-tion→N (cf.: its even more complicated morphemic structure including six bound morphemes: de-, nat-, -ion, -al, -ize and —tion).

Theoretically any derived word may become a basis for a new derivative. But in practice there are many restrictions on further derivation. For example, some affixes, like —ness, ‑ship, -ity close the derivational process: they do not allow other affixes to be added to the derivational bases. Furthermore, with each act of derivation the word loses its derivational potential. As the result of these restrictions and some other restrictions, the most common derivatives in English are derivatives of the first and second degree.

12. Affixation

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