This article reports on an investigation into the intralingual errors in word derivation and inflection committed in writing and speaking. The article argues that some intralingual errors can be considered “creative”. One main conclusion reached is that advanced learners can attain a level of competence which would render them having certain native speaker qualities in certain domains of language, i.e. lexical competence.

Keywords: Morphological intralingual errors, error analysis, creativity, lexical competence