What do derivational affixes do?

• A. Added to root words and change the meaning of the word and part of speech.
• B. Used only to form adjectives.
• C. Occur only in compound words.
• D. Are identical to inflectional affixes.

Answer: (C)

Derivational affixes attach to base words to form new words and often change meaning and part of speech. They can be prefixes or suffixes. For example, adding un- to clear creates a word that conveys negation, and adding -ness to happy turns an adjective into a noun, while -ful in care makes a new adjective meaning full of care. This shows how derivational affixes expand vocabulary and can change how a word functions in a sentence, not just its grammatical tense or number. They aren’t limited to adjectives or to words within compound constructions, and they are different from inflectional affixes, which modify grammatical features like tense, number, or comparison without changing the core meaning or category of the word.