List of derivation methods

The purpose of this page is to collect a fairly comprehensive list of derivational morphology methods (e.g., affixes) which can be used to derive more vocabulary from existing roots. Several existing conlangs have extensive derivational morphology methods (e.g., Volap&uuml;k, Esperanto, Ithkuil, Ladekwa, and many others), but as far as we can tell there is no comprehensive list comparing all their affix inventories, those of natural languages, and other possible ways to derive more words from roots.

Gary Shannon has made a start at a list of derivation functions.

Good sources would include the Ithkuil site, the Ladekwa site, the gj&acirc;-zym-byn site, a list of Esperanto affixes, & ditto for Volap&uuml;k and Ido. Rick Harrison's article on "Verb Aspect" covers several possibilities for using aspect-marking to derive one verb/action word from another.

Other resources include these CONLANG mailing list threads:
 * Thoughts on Word Building, 3 Dec 2005
 * Systematic Word Relationships, 21 Dec 2005

And this konyalanguage mailing list thread, on semantic conversions between nouns, verbs, modifiers and adpositions:
 * Semantic categories of root words, and part-of-speech conversion 19 July 2005

This list can't be exhaustive of the possibilities. For instance, in Hixkaryana several of the verb > noun patterns can involve tense distinctions; in addition to some of the affixes mentioned below there are others with the same basic meaning but a different tense. Esperanto does a limited amount of this with its tense/aspect distinctions in participles.