What is the distinction between inflectional affixes and derivational affixes？（四川大学200

正确答案：The distinction between inflectional morphemes and derivational morphemes could be illustrated in the following four aspects. Inflectional affixes very often only add a minute or delicate grammatical meaning to the stem for instance those inflectional affixes in words such as toys walks John"s etc. Therefore they serve to produce different forms of a single word. In contrast derivational affixes often change the lexical meaning e. g. cite citation; generate generation. Inflectional affixes do not change the word class of the word they attach to such as flower flowers; whereas derivational affixes might or might not such as the relation between small and smallness for the former and that between brother and brotherhood for the latter. Very often inflectional affixes are conditioned by non-semantic linguistic factors outside the word they attach to but within the phrase or sentence. Whereas derivational affixes are more often based on simple meaning distinctions. In English inflectional affixes are mostly suffixes which are always word final. But derivational affixes can be prefixes or suffixes.
Thedistinctionbetweeninflectionalmorphemesandderivationalmorphemescouldbeillustratedinthefollowingfouraspects.Inflectionalaffixesveryoftenonlyaddaminuteordelicategrammaticalmeaningtothestem,forinstance,thoseinflectionalaffixesinwordssuchastoys,walks,John"s,etc.Therefore,theyservetoproducedifferentformsofasingleword.Incontrast,derivationalaffixesoftenchangethelexicalmeaning,e.g.cite,citation;generate,generation.Inflectionalaffixesdonotchangethewordclassofthewordtheyattachto,suchasflower,flowers;whereasderivationalaffixesmightormightnot,suchastherelationbetweensmallandsmallnessfortheformer,andthatbetweenbrotherandbrotherhoodforthelatter.Veryofteninflectionalaffixesareconditionedbynon-semanticlinguisticfactorsoutsidethewordtheyattachtobutwithinthephraseorsentence.Whereasderivationalaffixesaremoreoftenbasedonsimplemeaningdistinctions.InEnglish,inflectionalaffixesaremostlysuffixes,whicharealwayswordfinal.Butderivationalaffixescanbeprefixesorsuffixes.