 Hello. Welcome. In this video we will talk about derivation. Derivation is a morphological process that creates new words by means of concatenative as well as non-concatenative operations. By the way, to profit from this e-lecture you should have watched our e-lectures on morphological processes and morphological operations first. The following types of derivation can be found in present-day English. Derivation by affixation, zero affixation or conversion and some other types which we will discuss in the video entitled other word forms. Probably the most common morphological operation of forming words is concatenation. In particular affixation. In present-day English affixes are normally defined concerning their position within a word, that is, in relation to the base. Additionally we can say something about their phonological contribution to the derived word form, that is, do they evoke any phonological changes or not, and also concerning their meaning. In present-day English two positional types of affixes are dominant. Prefixes and suffixes. Shall we look at prefixes first? Yes, let's do that. Prefixes are stress neutral. That is, they don't change the stress pattern of the base nor do they change the phonemic structure. Here are some examples. Usual, unusual, pack, unpack. Honest, dishonest, allow, disallow. As you can see in these examples the prefixes are not confined to particular word classes and they mostly don't influence the resulting words properties, grammatical properties. They are syntactically empty. However there are exceptions. Some prefixes are syntactically not empty and they can change the word class. Here are two examples. Enable and bewitch. By means of prefixation the adjective able may be turned into the verb enable or the noun which may become the verb bewitch. So the two prefixes n and b are syntactically not empty. So much for prefixes. Let's now look at suffixes. Okay, the most common means of deriving new words in present-day English makes use of suffixes and they can be classified in several ways. We can look at their phonological behavior and subdivide them into suffixes that inflict phonological changes as in produce, productive and into suffixes that are phonologically neutral such as help, helpful or punish, punishment. Furthermore we can always associate an inherent word class with them. There are nominal suffixes that is suffixes that turn base forms into nouns. There are verbal suffixes that result in verbs and adjectival suffixes which turn base forms into adjectives. But what about other affix types in present-day English? For example, circumfixes take in lighten. Isn't that a circumfix? Well, not really. If we check the most common databases such as the British National Corpus, we can see that there is a separate form lighten. Thus final en is a suffix and not part of a circumfix. What we could say that there are infixes, couldn't we? Yes, but they are confined to expressive language and involve so-called expletives, that is words with a negative attitude. And I hardly dare mention them, so please excuse my English here. Kangaroo, kanga bloody roo, and even worse, Tottenham, Tottenfuckingham. Right. However, this use of infixes is restricted by a suprasegmental constraint. The expletive material must be inserted between two feet, that is a unit consisting of either one stress syllable and one or more unstressed syllables. So let's go back to non-expressive present-day English and look at a special type of derivation which is referred to as conversion or by some linguists as zero affixation. So what is conversion? Well, conversion can be defined as a non-concatenative operation of enriching the English vocabulary. What happens here is that the word changes its grammatical properties, its word class, without changing its form. Let's take the word must as an example. Must is normally an auxiliary verb, but it can also be used as a noun. As an example, class attendance is a must. Conversion is a highly productive process in present-day English, especially with nouns and verbs like butter to butter. But as we've just seen, it can also involve other word classes. Sometimes this process is alternatively referred to as zero affixation. The idea behind this is that just like in suffixation, which often changes word class, an affix without content, a zero affix is added. Conversion raises three major problems. Problem one, the problem of directionality. How can we decide whether it's the verb that is derived from the noun or vice versa? Problem two, the problem of zero affixation. As already said, could it be possible to treat conversion as zero affixation and reduce different morphological operations to just concatenation? On problem three, the problem of crossing linguistic boundaries. How can we define that winter to winter is possible, but summer to summer is not. Without reference to other linguistic levels, for example, syntax or semantics, this is hardly possible. Okay, let's summarize. We have two central operations in present-day English that allow us to derive new words. Concatenation, mainly via prefixes and suffixes. As we saw, infixes are confined to expressive language and conversion. Other operations that expand the English vocabulary by means of recycling existing words, that is blends such as brunch, have not been considered in this e-lecture. So please consult the micro lectures or morphology for further detail. See you again soon. Bye bye.