Derivation (linguistics)

Derivation in linguistics is like making new words from old words. It’s like when you put different puzzle pieces together to make a new picture.

For example, let's say you have the word "kind" and you want to make a new word that means "not kind." You can add the prefix “un” to “kind” to create "unkind." That’s called a derived word because it’s made by adding something to the original word that changes its meaning.

Another example is the word "happiness." We can add the suffix “-ness” to the word "happy" to make it into a noun that means the state of being happy. This is also an example of derivation because we made a new word by adding something to the original word.

So, derivation is a way to create new words by changing the original words in different ways using suffixes or prefixes.