The differences between lexical and inflectional morphology
Analogous to the difficulties in defining the term “word”, is the great deal of difficulty involved in differentiating between lexical and inflectional morphology. In order to contrast these two morphologies we must, of course define them. As is customary, everything is simple to start with.
Lexical morphology is the study of morphological relations among lexemes. Fundamentally it deals with the relationship between complex and simple lexemes. Try, for example, is a simple lexeme, it cannot be broken down into simpler morphological elements. A more complex lexeme would be trying. In addition, there are compound lexemes, an example being swordfish. Different lexemes have separate entries and different definitions in the dictionary.