This chapter discusses the place of inflectional and derivational morphology in Role and Reference Grammar (RRG). After describing how inflection is encoded in the layered structure of the word, the chapter offers an explanatory account of the factors that motivate inflectional marking. The functional orientation of RRG presupposes a view of morphology distributed throughout the different components of the grammatical model. Additionally, the typological commitment of RRG requires paying close attention to the role of inflectional processes not only in dependent-marking languages but also in head-marking languages, since the interface between inflectional morphology and syntax is much tighter in the latter type of language. The chapter then reflects on word formation as a lexicological process which involves the interaction of lexical semantics and morphology. The approach to derivational morphology can be said to be markedly motivated by semantics.

Chapter 2 sketches aspects of the grammar of Kaqchikel relevant to the discussions in the subsequent chapters. Kaqchikel is a Mayan language spoken in Guatemala. It is a head-marking and morphologically ergative language in which subjects and objects are not overtly case-marked for grammatical relations. Rather, grammatical relations are obligatorily marked on predicates, e.g., a verb with two sets of agreement morphemes, one set for a transitive subject and another for a transitive object and an intransitive subject. The word order of Kaqchikel is relatively flexible, and all of the logically possible six word orders are grammatically allowed. Among these, VOS is considered the basic word order of Kaqchikel by many Mayan language researchers.