Definition and Examples of Inflectional Morpheme

In English morphology, an inflectional morpheme is  a suffix thats added to a word  (a noun, verb, adjective or an adverb) to assign a particular grammatical property to that word, such as its  tense, number, possession, or comparison. Inflectional morphemes in English include the  bound morphemes  -s (or -es); s (or s); -ed; -en; -er; -est; and -ing. These suffixes may even do double- or triple-duty. For example, - s can note possession (in conjunction with an apostrophe in the proper place), can make count nouns plural, or can put a verb in the third-person singular tense. The suffix -ed can make past participles or past-tense verbs.   Kristin Denham and Anne Lobeck, authors of Linguistics for Everyone, explain  why theres overlap:  This lack of distinction in form dates back to the  Middle English  period (1100–1500 CE),  when the more complex inflectional affixes found in  Old English  were slowly dropping out of the language.(Wadsworth, 2010) Contrast With Derivational Morphemes Unlike derivational morphemes, inflectional morphemes  do not change the essential meaning or the  grammatical category of a word. Adjectives stay adjectives, nouns remain nouns, and verbs stay verbs. For example, if you add an -s to the noun carrot to show plurality, carrot remains a noun. If you add -ed to the verb walk to show past tense, walked is still a verb. George Yule explains it this way: The difference between  derivational  and inflectional morphemes is worth emphasizing. An inflectional morpheme never changes the  grammatical category  of a word. For example, both  old  and  older  are adjectives. The  -er  inflection here (from  Old English  -ra) simply creates a different version of the adjective. However, a derivational morpheme can change the grammatical category of a word. The verb  teach  becomes the noun  teacher  if we add the derivational morpheme  -er  (from Old English  -ere). So, the suffix  -er  in  modern English  can be an inflectional morpheme as part of an adjective and also a distinct derivational morpheme as part of a noun. Just because they look the same (-er) doesnt mean they do the same kind of work.  (The Study of Language, 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2006) Placement Order When building words with multiple suffixes, there are rules in English that govern which order they go in.  In this example, the suffix is making a word into a comparative: Whenever there  is  a derivational suffix and an inflectional suffix attached to the same word, they always appear in that order. First the derivational (-er) is attached to  teach, then the inflectional (-s) is added to produce  teachers. (George Yule, The Study of Language, 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2006) Linguistics for Everyone lists additional examples to drive home the point about placement order of the affixes: For example, the words  antidisestablishmentarianism  and  uncompartmentalize  each contain a number of derivational affixes, and any inflectional affixes must occur at the end:  antidisestablishmentarianisms  and  uncompartmentalized. (Kristin Denham and Anne Lobeck. Wadsworth, 2010) The study of this process of forming words is called  inflectional morphology.