open or strong). A derivational  suffix  usually applies to  words  of one  syntactic category  and changes them into words of another  syntactic category . For example, the  English  derivational  suffix  -ly changes  adjectives  into  adverbs  (slow → slowly). Examples of English derivational patterns and their suffixes: F      adjective -to- noun : -ness (slow → slowness) F      adjective-to- verb