Talkin' 'bout my Generation

In the last lesson, we looked at affixation. 

Affixation is one way of making new words. Affixation is when we add a suffix (at the end of the word) or a prefix (at the beginning of the word) to a base or root word to change the meaning or the part of speech. 

This is also called morphological derivation. 

This type of word formation can either preserve (class-preserving) or change the class of the word (class-changing), for example a verb becomes a noun.

Prefixes are usually class-preserving.

Suffixes are usually class-changing.

Inflectional Morphology

Inflectional morphology is when we add a morpheme to give grammatical information (eg.–s for 3rd person singular present tense verbs or plural -s for nouns). 

Look at the following examples. Does the -s suffix sound the same? 

1. She likes chocolate.
2. She always pays her bills on time. 
3. She uses public transport most days  

What about in these past tense examples? Does the -ed / -d inflectional suffix sound the same? 

1. She liked chocolate.
2. She always paid her bills on time.
3. She used public transport most days.