derivational

Backformation is the reverse of adding an affix (i.e prefix or suffix) to a word (or if we’re not just talking about English, doing any kind of derivational operation on a word, whether it’s affixing, or repeating a portion of the word, or changing the vowels, etc.)

The Volokh Conspiracy » Watch my Backformation 2004

The - ly suffix (meaning “like”, by the way, and derived from an Old English word meaning “corpse” – cool, no?) is a late-comer to English derivational suffixes, replacing the now purely phonetic final e (used to mean “adverb”, now means “long preceding vowel”).

Slow down a second « Motivated Grammar 2009

The same root *sub- appears to be present as in Etruscan and Egyptian and we even may be seeing an Aegean derivational suffix *-na attached.

Archive 2010-07-01 2010

Even, say, including the derivational and conjugational endings as entries in the dictionary would be, really, really handy.

Etruscan citynames 2010

The same root *sub- appears to be present as in Etruscan and Egyptian and we even may be seeing an Aegean derivational suffix *-na attached.

A Mediterranean flute wanderword 2010

It would literally have meant '(Town of) flowing waters', from *rūmōn 'river; flowing water', a securely Indo-European formation built on the root *reu- 'to flow, to run (as of liquid)' and the derivational suffix *-mo-.

An etymology for 'Rome' 2010

Kenneth Schaffner used and developed Ernst Nagel's (1961) analysis of derivational theory reduction to argue for the reduction of classical Mendelian genetics (T2) to molecular biology (T1) and refined it over many years

Molecular Biology Darden, Lindley 2009

In summary, philosophers of biology agree that the relations between Mendelian genetics and molecular biology are not appropriately analyzed via derivational intertheoretic reduction.

Molecular Biology Darden, Lindley 2009

Waters thus defended “informal reduction,” in which molecular models of crossing-over between homologous chromosomes were shown to be explanatory, even though no derivational reduction was involved.

Molecular Biology Darden, Lindley 2009

This mechanistic analysis better captured, she claimed, the practice of biologists, with their frequent talk of mechanisms, than the analyses of the relations between the fields in terms of formal derivational theory reduction, informal reduction, replacement, related investigative strategies, and explanatory extension via expanded argument schemata.

Molecular Biology Darden, Lindley 2009