Final answer:
It is false that inflectional suffixes alter the part of speech of a word; they modify the word for grammatical reasons but retain the original part of speech. Derivational suffixes, however, can change the part of speech of a word.
Step-by-step explanation:
Can Inflectional Suffixes Alter the Part of Speech of a Word?
The question of whether inflectional suffixes can alter the part of speech of a word is false. Inflectional suffixes modify a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, mood, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, and case, but do not change the word's part of speech. For instance, the suffix -ed is added to verbs to form the past tense (e.g., walk to walk), but the word remains a verb. Other examples of inflectional suffixes include -s, which pluralizes nouns or forms the third-person singular present tense of verbs, and -ing, which is used for the present participle form of verbs. None of these alter the original part of speech of the base word.
Although inflectional suffixes do not change the part of speech, derivational suffixes do. For example, -ion, -ness, and -ment are derivational suffixes that can turn verbs into nouns (e.g., the verb 'act' becomes the noun 'action' with the addition of -ion). Similarly, -able and -ible can turn nouns or verbs into adjectives (e.g., 'read' becomes 'readable'). When combining prefixes, bases, and suffixes, one must be aware of spelling changes that might occur such as palatalization, where [ch] is spelled <t>. Examples of such combinations include 'dis + gest + ion' resulting in 'digestion', where palatalization causes the 't' to be pronounced as [ch]. Likewise, suffixes like -ful, -less, -ly, and -y add meaning to words but maintain their part of speech. Understanding the role of suffixes is crucial for proper word formation and mastery of grammatical structures in the English language.