Which are inflectional morphemes

Used with the linking verb have in the Main Verb Phrase Formula to form the present perfect and past perfect. For most regular verbs, the past-participle inflection is —ed , just like the past-tense inflection. Used with the helping verb be in the Main Verb Phrase Formula to form the present progressive. The present-participle inflection also often occurs as a noun modifer e. In English, adjectives only take two inflections: the comparative and superlative.

Notice that all the example base morphemes only have one or two syllables. Adjectives with more than two syllables can be made comparative and superlative by the addition of words more ; most , not inflectional morphemes. Some adverbs can take the same comparative and superlative inflections -er ; -est that adjectives take:. Many adverbs cannot take these inflections, however. Notice the awkwardness of the following phrases:.

For many English verbs, the past tense is spelled with an —ed , walked, cooked, climbed but there are also many English verbs where the tense inflection is indicated with a change in the vowel of the verb sang, wrote, ate. English does not have a bound morpheme that indicates future tense, but many languages do. Another kind of inflectional morphology is agreement on verbs.

Here are some examples from French. In the first sentence, the boy is doing the seeing, but in the second, the boy is getting seen, and the word for boy, Junge has a different morpheme on it to indicate its different role in the sentence.

We hope this quick guide gave you a clear understanding of Inflectional and derivational Morphemes, and how they are used in English language. You must be logged in to post a comment. Skip to content. Examples of Inflectional Morphemes Inflectional morphemes are suffixes that get added to a word, thus, adding a grammatical value to it.

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply You must be logged in to post a comment. Updated January 24, Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Nordquist, Richard. Meaning and Examples of Inflectional Morphemes.

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