Kirsten Mills, 1998

http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/caneng/m
orpheme.htm
Derivational morpheme: this type of
morpheme changes the meaning of the word
or the part of speech ( word class ) or both. 
Different with inflectional morpheme
Derivational morphemes often create new
words. 
In English, derivational morphemes can be
prefixes or suffixes.

differences
 http://wordformation.blogspot.com/20
08/04/derivational-morphemes.html
Sari (1988) says that derivational morphemes are bound

morphemes which derive (create) new words by either

changing the meaning or the part of speech or both.
Bound morpheme = those that function only as parts of

words ( can’t stand on its own )

For example : doubtful, establishment, frighten, teacher

The underscore part = bound morpheme

 Derivational morphemes form new words
Derivational Morphemes
 either by changing the meaning of the base to which they are attached

kind ~ unkind; obey ~ disobey

accurate ~ inaccurate; act ~ react
cigar ~ cigarette; book ~ booklet
or by changing the grammatical category (part of speech) of the base
kind ~ kindly; act ~ active ~ activity
able ~ enable; damp ~ dampen
care ~ careful; dark ~ darkness
 Examples of Derivational Affixes
Prefix Grammatical Grammatical Example Suffix Grammatical Grammatical Example
category of base category of category of category of
output base output

in- Adj Adj inaccurate -hood N N child-hood

un- Adj Adj unkind -ship N N leader-ship

un- V V untie -fy N V beauti-fy

dis- V V dis-like -ic N Adj poet-ic

dis- Adj Adj dishonest -less N Adj power-less

re- V V rewrite -ful N Adj care-ful

ex- N N ex-wife -al V N refus-al

en- N V encourage -er V N read-er

Another examples :
• In the word happiness, the bound morpheme –
ness creates a new word by changing both the
meaning and the part of speech.
• Happy = adjective
• The derived word happiness = noun.
A similar process uses prefixes instead of suffixes
In English, prefixes typically change the meaning of
a word but do not alter its lexical category. Example :
a. MIS- + Verb  Verb ( misstep, misclassify )
b. UN- + Adjective  Adjective ( unkind, untrue,
unfair )
c. UN- + Verb  Verb ( undo, unchain, uncover )
Some derivational morphemes create new
meaning but do not change the syntactic
category or part of speech. The word unhappy,
for example, consists of the base happy and the
derivational morpheme (prefix) un-.
Happy = adjective

The derived word unhappy is also an adjective.

In English, such derivational morphemes tend
to be added to the ends of words as suffixes
The meaning changes and
The relationship can be represent as follow :

a. Noun + -ful  Adjective ( beautiful,

doubtful )
b. Adjective + -ly  Adverb ( truly, beautifully )
c. Verb + -ment  Noun ( amazement )
d. Verb + - er  Noun ( teacher, rider )
e. Adjective + -en  Verb ( brighten, harden )
f. Noun + -en  Verb ( frighten, hasten )
d. UNDER- +verb  Verb ( undercount,
underscore )
e. RE- + Verb  Verb ( rephrase, rewrite )
f. EX- + Noun  Noun (ex-husband, ex – wife )
Conclusion
Derivational morphemes produce new words
from existing words in two ways :
1.They can change the meaning of a word
- example : true  untrue
paint  repaint
2. They can change the lexical category of a
word
- example : true  adjective
truly  adverb
truth  noun