Editing Morphology (linguistics) (section)

===Inflection vs. word formation===
Given the notion of a lexeme, it is possible to distinguish two kinds of morphological rules. Some morphological rules relate to different forms of the same lexeme, but other rules relate to different lexemes. Rules of the first kind are [[inflection]]al rules, but those of the second kind are rules of [[word formation]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anderson |first1=Stephen R. |title=A-Morphous Morphology |year=1992 |url=https://archive.org/details/amorphousmorphol00ande |url-access=limited |publisher=Cambridge: Cambridge University Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/amorphousmorphol00ande/page/n87 74], 75|isbn=9780521378666 }}</ref> The generation of the English plural ''dogs'' from ''dog'' is an inflectional rule, and compound phrases and words like ''dog catcher'' or ''dishwasher'' are examples of word formation. Informally, word formation rules form "new" words (more accurately, new lexemes), and inflection rules yield variant forms of the "same" word (lexeme).

The distinction between inflection and word formation is not at all clear-cut. There are many examples for which linguists fail to agree whether a given rule is inflection or word formation. The next section will attempt to clarify the distinction.

Word formation includes a process in which one combines two complete words, but inflection allows the combination of a suffix with a verb to change the latter's form to that of the subject of the sentence. For example: in the present indefinite, 'go' is used with subject I/we/you/they and plural nouns, but third-person singular pronouns (he/she/it) and singular nouns causes 'goes' to be used. The '-es' is therefore an inflectional marker that is used to match with its subject. A further difference is that in word formation, the resultant word may differ from its source word's [[grammatical category]], but in the process of inflection, the word never changes its grammatical category.