Inflection 71224 225203272 2008-07-12T13:03:55Z Naddy 28830 /* Examples in English */ {{otheruses4|inflection in linguistics|inflection in mathematics|Inflection point}} {{distinguish2 | [[intonation (linguistics)|intonation]]}} [[Image:FlexiónGato.png|thumb|175px|Inflection of the [[Spanish language|Spanish]] lexeme for "cat", with blue representing the masculine gender, pink representing the feminine gender, grey representing the form used for mixed-gender, and green representing the plural number. The singular is unmarked.]] In [[grammar]], '''inflection''' or '''inflexion''' is the modification or [[marker (linguistics)|marking]] of a word (or more precisely [[lexeme]]) to reflect grammatical (that is, relational) information, such as [[grammatical gender|gender]], [[grammatical tense|tense]], [[grammatical number|number]], [[grammatical case|case]], or [[grammatical person|person]]. The concept of a "word" independent of the different inflections is called a [[lexeme]], and the form of a word that is considered to have no or minimal inflection is called a [[lemma (linguistics)|lemma]]. <!--Compatible inflection at the sentence level is known as concord or [[Agreement (linguistics)|agreement]].--> == Examples in English == In English many nouns are inflected for [[grammatical number|number]] with the inflectional plural [[affix]] ''-s'' (as in "dog" → "dog-'''s'''"), and most English verbs are inflected for [[grammatical tense|tense]] with the inflectional past tense affix ''-ed'' (as in "call" → "call-'''ed'''"). English also inflects verbs by affixation to mark the third person singular in the present tense (with ''-s''), and the present participle (with ''-ing''). English short adjectives are inflected to mark comparative and superlative forms (with ''-er'' and ''-est'' respectively). In addition, English also shows inflection by [[Indo-European ablaut|ablaut]] (mostly in verbs) and [[Germanic umlaut|umlaut]] (mostly in nouns), as well as the odd long-short vowel alternation. For example: * ''Write, wrote, written'' (ablaut, and also suffixing in the [[participle]]) * ''Sing, sang, sung'' (ablaut) * ''Foot, feet'' (umlaut) * ''Mouse, mice'' (umlaut) * ''Child, children'' (vowel alternation, and also suffixing in the plural) In the past, writers sometimes gave words such as ''doctor'', ''Negro'', ''dictator'', ''professor'', and ''orator'' [[Latin]] inflections to mark them as feminine, thus forming ''doctress'', ''Negress'', ''dictatrix'', ''professress'', and ''oratress''. These inflected forms were never frequently used, although many English users continue to use Latin endings today in somewhat more common constructions such as ''actress'', ''waitress'', ''executrix'', and ''dominatrix''. [[German language|German]], which is closely related to English, employs many of these inflectional devices, but the umlaut and ablaut are widespread, while in English they are generally considered as exceptions. == Declension and conjugation == {{main|Declension|Grammatical conjugation}} Two traditional grammatical terms refer to inflections of specific [[word class]]es: * Nominals: [[noun]]s, and often [[pronoun]]s, [[adjective]]s, and [[determiner]]s as well; often involving [[grammatical number|number]], [[noun case|case]], and/or [[grammatical gender|gender]]; and * [[Verb]]s, often involving [[grammatical tense|tense]], [[grammatical mood|mood]], [[grammatical voice|voice]], and/or [[grammatical aspect|aspect]], as well as [[agreement (linguistics)|agreement]] with one or more [[verb argument|arguments]] in number, gender, and/or [[grammatical person|person]]. Inflecting a nominal word is known as '''declining''' it, while inflecting a verb is called '''conjugating''' it. An organized list of the inflected forms of a given lexeme is also called its ''inflection'', ''[[declension]]'', or ''[[Grammatical conjugation|conjugation]]'', as the case may be. Below is an example of the declension of the English pronoun ''I'', which is inflected for case and number. {| border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="4" |- | &nbsp; | ''singular'' | ''plural'' |- | &nbsp; &nbsp; ''[[Subjective pronoun|subject]]'' | &nbsp; I | we |- | &nbsp; &nbsp; ''[[Objective pronoun|object]]'' | &nbsp; me | us |- | &nbsp; &nbsp; ''[[Possessive pronoun|possessive]]'' | &nbsp; mine | ours |- | &nbsp; &nbsp; ''[[Reflexive pronoun|reflexive]]'' | &nbsp; myself | ourselves |} The pronoun ''who'' is also inflected in conservative English, though only according to case. One can say that its declension is '''defective''', in the sense that it lacks a reflexive form. {| border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="4" | &nbsp; | ''singular'' & ''plural'' |- | &nbsp; &nbsp; ''subject'' | who |- | &nbsp; &nbsp; ''object'' | whom |- | &nbsp; &nbsp; ''possessive'' | whose |- | &nbsp; &nbsp; ''reflexive'' | - |} The following table shows the conjugation of the verb ''to arrive'' in the indicative [[Grammatical mood|mood]]. It is inflected for person, number, and tense by [[suffix]]ation. {| border="2" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%;" !bgcolor="#E0E0FF"|[[Grammatical tense|tense]]||''I''||''you''||''he, she, it''||''we''||''you''||''they'' |- ! align=left| Present |''arriv'''e'''''||''arriv'''e'''''||''arriv'''es'''''||''arriv'''e'''''||''arriv'''e'''''||''arriv'''e''''' |- ! align=left| Past |''arriv'''ed'''''||''arriv'''ed'''''||''arriv'''ed'''''||''arriv'''ed'''''||''arriv'''ed'''''||''arriv'''ed''''' |} The [[Non-finite verb|non-finite form]]s ''arriv'''e''''' (bare infinitive), ''arriv'''ed''''' (past participle) and ''arriv'''ing''''' (gerund/present participle), although not inflected for person or number, can also be regarded as part of the conjugation of the verb ''to arrive''. [[Compound verb|Compound verb form]]s like ''I have arrived'', ''I had arrived'', or ''I will arrive'' can be included also in the conjugation of this verb for didactical purposes, but are not conjugations of ''arrive'' in the strictest morphological sense. Rather, they should be analysed as complex verb [[phrase]]s with the structure :pronoun + conjugated [[auxiliary verb]] + non-finite form of main verb. A class of words with similar inflection rules is called an '''inflectional paradigm'''. Nominal inflectional paradigms are also called ''declensions'', and verbal inflectional paradigms are called ''conjugations''. For example, in [[Old English]] nouns could be divided into two major declensions, the strong and the weak, inflected as is shown below: {| border=1 style="text-align:center; margin:1em 1em 1em 0; border:1px #333 solid; border-collapse:collapse;" ! style="background:#efafef;" rowspan="3"| ! style="background:#efefef;" colspan="6"|'''gender and number''' |- ! style="background:#efefef;" colspan="2"|'''Masculine''' ! style="background:#efefef;" colspan="2"|'''Neuter''' ! style="background:#efefef;" colspan="2"|'''Feminine''' |- | style="background:#efefef;"|'''Singular''' | style="background:#efefef;"|'''Plural''' | style="background:#efefef;"|'''Singular''' | style="background:#efefef;"|'''Plural''' | style="background:#efefef;"|'''Singular''' | style="background:#efefef;"|'''Plural''' |- ! style="background:#efafef;" rowspan="2"|'''[[Grammatical case|case]]''' ! style="background:#afefef;" colspan="6"|'''Strong Noun Declension''' |- ! style="background:#efefef;" colspan="2"|<small>engel 'angel'</small> ! style="background:#efefef;" colspan="2"|<small>scip 'ship'</small> ! style="background:#efefef;" colspan="2"|<small>sorg 'sorrow'</small> |- | style="background:#efefef;" align=left|'''Nominative''' || engel || engl'''as''' || scip || scip'''u''' || sorg || sorg'''a''' |- | style="background:#efefef;" align=left|'''Accusative''' || engel || engl'''as''' || scip || scip'''u''' || sorg'''e''' || sorg'''a'''/sorg'''e''' |- | style="background:#efefef;" align=left|'''Genitive''' || engl'''es''' || engl'''a''' || scip'''es''' || scip'''a''' || sorg'''e''' || sorg'''a''' |- | style="background:#efefef;" align=left|'''Dative''' || engl'''e''' || engl'''um''' || scip'''e''' || scip'''um''' || sorg'''e''' || sorg'''um''' |- ! style="background:#efafef;" rowspan="2"|'''case''' ! style="background:#afefef;" colspan="6"|'''Weak Noun Declension''' |- ! style="background:#efefef;" colspan="2"|<small>nama 'name'</small> ! style="background:#efefef;" colspan="2"|<small>ēage 'eye'</small> ! style="background:#efefef;" colspan="2"|<small>tunge 'tongue'</small> |- | style="background:#efefef;" align=left|'''Nominative''' || nam'''a''' || nam'''an''' || ēag'''e''' || ēag'''an''' || tung'''e''' || tung'''an''' |- | style="background:#efefef;" align=left|'''Accusative''' || nam'''an''' || nam'''an''' || ēag'''e''' || ēag'''an''' || tung'''an''' || tung'''an''' |- | style="background:#efefef;" align=left|'''Genitive''' || nam'''an''' || nam'''ena''' || ēag'''an''' || ēag'''ena''' || tung'''an''' || tung'''ena''' |- | style="background:#efefef;" align=left|'''Dative''' || nam'''an''' || nam'''um''' || ēag'''an''' || ēag'''um''' || tung'''an''' || tung'''um''' |} These two terms, however, seem to be biased toward well-known [[dependent-marking language]]s (such as the [[Indo-European languages]], or [[Japanese language|Japanese]]). In dependent-marking languages, nouns in adpositional phrases can carry inflectional morphemes. ([[Adposition]]s include prepositions and postpositions.) In [[head-marking language]]s, the adpositions can carry the inflection in adpositional phrases. This means that these languages will have inflected adpositions. In [[Western Apache]] ([[San Carlos, Arizona|San Carlos]] dialect), the postposition ''-ká’'' 'on' is inflected for person and number with prefixes. {| BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="2" CELLPADDING="4" |- | | COLSPAN=2 align="center"| ''Singular'' | COLSPAN=2 align="center"| ''Dual'' | COLSPAN=2 align="center"| ''Plural'' |- | &nbsp; &nbsp; ''1st'' | align="right"| &nbsp; '''shi-'''ká’ | <small>'on me'</small> | align="right"| '''noh-'''ká’ | <small>'on us two'</small> | align="right"| '''da-noh-'''ká’ | <small>'on us'</small> |- | &nbsp; &nbsp; ''2nd'' | align="right"| &nbsp; '''ni-'''ká’ | <small>'on you'</small> | align="right"| '''nohwi-'''ká’ | <small>'on you two'</small> | align="right"| '''da-nohwi-'''ká’ | <small>'on you all'</small> |- | &nbsp; &nbsp; ''3rd'' | align="right"| &nbsp; '''bi-'''ká’ | <small>'on him'</small> | COLSPAN=2 align="center"| - | align="right"| '''da-bi-'''ká’ | <small>'on them'</small> |} Traditional grammars have specific terms for inflections of nouns and verbs, but not for those of [[adposition]]s. == Inflection vs. derivation ==<!-- This section is linked from [[Esperanto grammar]] --> {{main|Derivation (linguistics)}} Inflection is the process of adding ''inflectional [[morphemes]]'' (atomic meaning units) to a word, which may indicate grammatical information (for example, case, number, person, gender or word class, mood, tense, or aspect). Compare with ''derivational morphemes'', which create a new word from an existing word, sometimes by simply changing grammatical category (for example, changing a noun to a verb). Words generally do not appear in dictionaries with inflectional morphemes. But they often do appear with derivational morphemes. For instance, English dictionaries list ''readable'' and ''readability'', words with derivational suffixes, along with their root ''read''. However, no traditional English dictionary will list ''book'' as one entry and ''books'' as a separate entry nor will they list ''jump'' and ''jumped'' as two different entries. In some languages, inflected words do not appear in a fundamental form (the [[root morpheme]]) except in dictionaries and grammars. == Inflectional morphology == {{main|Inflectional morphology}} Languages that add inflectional morphemes to words are sometimes called ''inflectional languages''. Morphemes may be added in several different ways: * [[Affix]]ation, or simply adding morphemes onto the word without changing the root, * [[Reduplication]], doubling all or part of a word to change its meaning, * [[Alternation (linguistics)|Alternation]], exchanging one sound for another in the root (usually vowel sounds, as in the [[Indo-European ablaut|ablaut]] process found in Germanic [[strong verb]]s and the [[Germanic umlaut|umlaut]] often found in [[noun]]s, among others). * [[Prosody (linguistics)|Suprasegmental variations]], such as of [[Lexical stress|stress]], [[pitch accent|pitch]] or [[tonal language|tone]], where no sounds are added or changed but the intonation and relative strength of each sound is altered regularly. For an example, see [[Initial-stress-derived noun]]. Affixing includes prefixing (adding before the base), and suffixing (adding after the base), as well as the much less common infixing (inside) and circumfixing (a combination of prefix and suffix). Inflection is most typically realized by adding an inflectional [[morpheme]] (that is, [[affix]]ation) to the base form (either the [[root (linguistics)|root]] or a [[stem (linguistics)|stem]]). == Relation to morphological typology == {{main | morphological typology}} Inflection is sometimes confused with [[synthetic language|synthesis in languages]]. The two terms are related but not the same. Languages are broadly classified [[Morphological typology|morphologically]] into [[analytic language|analytic]] and [[synthetic language|synthetic]] categories, or more realistically along a continuum between the two extremes. Analytic languages isolate meaning into individual words, whereas synthetic languages create words not found in the dictionary by fusing or agglutinating [[morpheme]]s, sometimes to the extent of having a whole sentence's worth of meaning in a single word. Inflected languages by definition fall into the '''synthetic''' category, though not all synthetic languages need be inflected. == Inflection in various languages == === Indo-European languages (fusional) === All [[Indo-European languages]], such as [[Albanian language|Albanian]], [[English language|English]], [[German language|German]], [[Russian language|Russian]], [[Persian language|Persian (Fârsi)]], [[Italian language|Italian]], [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[French language|French]], [[Sanskrit language|Sanskrit]], and [[Hindi language|Hindi]] are inflected to a greater or lesser extent. In general, older Indo-European languages such as [[Latin]], [[Irish language|Irish]], [[Slavic languages|Slavic]], [[Latvian language|Latvian]], [[Lithuanian language|Lithuanian]], and more prominently [[Greek language|Greek]] and [[Sanskrit]] in all their historical forms, are extensively inflected. [[deflexion (linguistics)|Deflexion]] caused newer languages such as English and French to lose much of their historical inflection. [[Afrikaans language|Afrikaans]], an extremely young language, is almost completely uninflected and borders on being [[analytic language|analytic]]. Some branches of Indo-European (for example, the [[Slavic language]]s, the [[Celtic language]]s, and the [[Romance language]]s) have generally retained more inflection than others (such as many [[Germanic languages]], with the notable exception of [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]]). ==== English ==== [[Old English language|Old English]] was a moderately inflected language, using an extensive case system similar to that of modern [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]] or [[German language|German]]. Middle and Modern English lost progressively more of the Old English inflectional system. Modern English is considered a weakly inflected language, since its nouns have only vestiges of inflection (plurals, the pronouns), and its regular verbs have only four forms: an inflected form for the past indicative and subjunctive (''looked''), an inflected form for the third-person-singular present indicative (''looks''), an inflected form for the present participle (''looking''), and an uninflected form for everything else (''look''). While the English possessive indicator ''&#39;s'' (as in "Jane's book") is a remnant of the Old English [[genitive case]] suffix, it is now not a suffix but a [[clitic]]. See also [[Declension in English]]. ==== Other Germanic languages ==== [[Old Norse language|Old Norse]] was inflected, but modern [[Swedish language|Swedish]], [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]] and [[Danish language|Danish]] have, like English, lost almost all inflection. [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]] preserves almost all of the inflections of Old Norse and has added its own. Modern [[German language|German]] remains moderately inflected, retaining four noun cases, although the genitive had already began falling into disuse in all but formal writing in Early New High German, inspiring the title of the 2004 bestseller ''Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod'' ("the dative is the death of the genitive", using the dative where archaic or formal writing would use the genitive). The case system of [[Dutch language|Dutch]], simpler than German's, is also becoming more simplified in common usage. [[Afrikaans language|Afrikaans]], recognized as a distinct language in its own right rather than a Dutch dialect only in the early 20th century, has lost almost all inflection. ==== Latin and the Romance languages ==== The [[Romance languages]], such as Spanish, Italian, French, and Romanian, have more inflection than English, especially in [[grammatical conjugation|verb conjugation]]. A single morpheme usually carries information about person, number, tense, aspect and mood, and the verb paradigm may be quite complex. Adjectives, nouns and articles are considerably less inflected, but they still have different forms according to number and grammatical gender. Latin was even more inflected; nouns and adjectives had different forms according to their [[grammatical case]] (with several patterns of declension, and three genders instead of the two found in most Romance tongues), and there were synthetic perfective and passive voice verb forms. ==== Slavic languages ==== The [[Slavic languages]], including [[Russian language|Russian]], [[Polish language|Polish]], [[Czech language|Czech]], [[Slovak language|Slovak]], [[Croatian language|Croatian]], [[Bosnian language|Bosnian]], [[Serbian language|Serbian]], [[Ukrainian language|Ukranian]], [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]], and [[Slovenian language|Slovenian]] among others, all make use of a high degree of inflection, typically having six or seven cases and three genders. Many Slavic languages include a vocative case for interjections and exclamations, and Slovenian uses a rare third number, (in addition to singular and plural numbers) known as [[Dual (grammatical number)|duality]]. In addition, in some Slavic languages, such as Polish, word stems are frequently modified by the addition or absence of endings, resulting in [[Apophony|consonant and vowel alternation]]. === Arabic (fusional) === Arabic (more precisely Literary/[[Literary Arabic|Modern Standard Arabic]] (MSA) ({{lang|ar|اللغة العربية الفصحى}}) is a moderately-inflected language. It uses a complex system of pronouns and their respective prefixes and suffixes for verb, noun, adjective and possessive conjugation. The following table is an example of '''present-tense''' case applications in Arabic: {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" | '''Base''' | colspan=3| '''Singular''' | colspan=3| '''Plural''' | colspan=3| '''Dual''' |- | ! ''Pronoun'' ! ''Possessive Suffix'' ! ''Verb Affixes'' ! ''Pronoun'' ! ''Possess. Suffix'' ! ''Verb Affixes'' ! ''Pronoun'' ! ''Possess. Suffix'' ! ''Verb Affixes'' |- | align=left | '''I''' | {{lang|ar| أنا }} | {{lang|ar| ــي }} | {{lang|ar| أ }} | {{lang|ar| نحن }} | {{lang|ar| ــنا }} | {{lang|ar| نــ }} | - | - | - |- | align=left | '''you (masc.)''' | {{lang|ar| أنتَ }} | {{lang|ar| ــكَ }} | {{lang|ar| تــــــ }} | {{lang|ar| أنتم }} | {{lang|ar| ــكم }} | {{lang|ar| تــــــــــــون }} | {{lang|ar| أنتما }} | {{lang|ar| ــكما }} | {{lang|ar| تــــــــــــان }} |- | align=left | '''you (fem.)''' | {{lang|ar| أنتِ }} | {{lang|ar| ــكِ }} | {{lang|ar| تــــــــــــين }} | {{lang|ar| أنتنّ }} | {{lang|ar| ــكنّ }} | {{lang|ar| تــــــــــــنّ }} | " | " | " |- | align=left | '''he''' | {{lang|ar| هو }} | {{lang|ar| ــه }} | {{lang|ar| يــ }} | {{lang|ar| هم }} | {{lang|ar| ــهم }} | {{lang|ar| يـــــــــــــون }} | {{lang|ar| هما }} | {{lang|ar| ــهما }} | {{lang|ar| يــــــــــــان }} |- | align=left | '''she''' | {{lang|ar| هي }} | {{lang|ar| ــها }} | {{lang|ar| تــ }} | {{lang|ar| هنّ }} | {{lang|ar| ــهنّ }} | {{lang|ar| تــــــــــــنّ }} | " | " | " |}<small>* note: a long [[Keshideh|tatwiil]] ( ـــــــــــــــــــــ ) indicates where the verb stem would be placed in order to conjugate it.</small> Arabic [[Varieties of Arabic|regional dialects]] (e.g. [[Morocco|Moroccan]] Arabic, [[Egypt]]ian Arabic, [[Persian Gulf|Gulf]] Arabic), used for everyday communication, tend to have less inflection than the more formal Literary Arabic. For example, in [[Jordan]]ian Arabic, the second- and third-person feminine plurals ({{lang|ar|أنتنّ}} and {{lang|ar|هنّ}}) and their respective unique conjugations are lost and replaced by the masculine ({{lang|ar|أنتم}} and {{lang|ar|هم}}). === Uralic languages (agglutinative) === The [[Uralic languages]] (comprising [[Finno-Ugric languages|Finno-Ugric]] and [[Samoyedic languages|Samoyedic]]) are [[agglutinative language|agglutinative]], following from the agglutination in [[Proto-Uralic]]. The largest languages are Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian, all [[European Union]] official languages. Uralic inflection is, or is developed from, affixing. Grammatical markers directly added to the word perform the same function as prepositions in English. Almost all words are inflected according to their roles in the sentence: verbs, nouns, pronouns, numerals, adjectives, and some particles. Hungarian and Finnish, in particular, often simply concatenate suffixes. For example, Finnish ''talossanikinko'' "in my house, too?" consists of ''talo-ssa-ni-kin-ko''. However, in the [[Finnic languages]] (Finnish, Estonian, Sami), there are processes which affect the root, particularly [[consonant gradation]]. The original suffixes may disappear (and appear only by [[liaison]]), leaving behind the modification of the root. This process is extensively developed in Estonian and Sami, and makes them also inflected, not only agglutinating languages. The Estonian [[accusative case]], for example, is expressed by a modified root: ''maja'' →''majja'' (historical form *''majam''). === Basque (agglutinative) === [[Basque language|Basque]], a [[language isolate]], is an extremely inflected language, heavily inflecting both nouns and verbs. A Basque [[noun]] is inflected in 17 different ways for case, multiplied by 4 ways for its definiteness and number. These first 68 forms are further modified based on other parts of the sentence, which in turn are inflected for the noun again. It is estimated that at two levels of [[recursion]], a Basque noun may have 458,683 inflected forms.<ref>[http://acl.ldc.upenn.edu/A/A92/A92-1016.pdf Agirre et al, 1992]</ref> Verb forms are similarly complex, agreeing with the subject, the direct object and several other [[verb argument|argument]]s. === East Asian languages (isolating) === Some of the major Eastern Asian languages (such as the various [[Chinese language]]s, [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]], and [[Thai language|Thai]]) are not inflected, or show very little inflection (though they used to show more), so they are considered [[analytic language]]s (also known as ''isolating languages''). ==== Japanese ==== [[Japanese language|Japanese]] shows a high degree of inflection on verbs, less so on adjectives, and very little on nouns, but it is always strictly [[agglutinative language|agglutinative]] and extremely regular. Formally, every noun phrase must be [[case marker|marked for case]], but this is done by invariable particles ([[clitic]] [[postposition]]s). (Many grammarians consider Japanese particles to be separate words, and therefore not an inflection, while others consider agglutination a type of inflection, and therefore consider Japanese nouns inflected.) ==== Chinese ==== The [[Chinese languages|Chinese]] family of languages, in general, does not possess inflectional morphology. Chinese words generally comprise of one or two syllables, each of which corresponds to a written character and individual morpheme. Since most morphemes are monosyllabic in Chinese languages,<ref>Norman, p. 84.</ref> Chinese is quite resistant to inflectional changes; instead, Chinese has its other methods of achieving grammatical fluency. While many European languages use inflection or declension to mark words' function in a particular sentence, the Chinese languages use wordorder as a grammatical marking system. Whereas in English the first-person singular nominative "I" changes to "me" when used in the accusative - that is, when "I" is the object of a verb - Chinese simply uses the wordorder to mark such a distinction. An example from Mandarin: ''wǒ gěile tā yī běn shū'' 'I gave him a book'. Here ''wǒ'' means 'I' and ''tā'' means 'him'. However, 'He gave me a book' would be: ''tā gěile wǒ yī běn shū''. ''Wǒ'' and ''Tā'' simply change places in the sentence to indicate that their case has switched: there is no inflection or change in the form of the words. In classical Chinese, different pronouns were used in different cases. However, these are no longer used; most of the alternative pronouns are considered archaic in modern Mandarin Chinese. Classically, 我 ''wǒ'' was used solely as the first person accusative. 吾 ''Wú'' was generally used as the first person nominative. <ref>Norman, p. 89.</ref> == Auxiliary languages == Many auxiliary languages have very simple inflectional systems. [[Ido]] for instance has a different form for each verbal tense (past, present, future, volitive and imperative) plus an infinitive, and both a present and past participle. There are though no inflections for person or number and all verbs are regular. Nouns are marked for number (singular and plural), and the accusative case may be shown in certain situations, typically when the direct object of a sentence precedes its verb. On the other hand, adjectives are unmarked for gender, number or case (unless they stand on their own, without a noun, in which case they take on the same desinences as the missing noun would have taken). The definite article "la" ("the") remains unaltered regardless of gender or case, and also of number, except when there is no other word to show plurality. Pronouns are identical in all cases, though exceptionally the accusative case may be marked, as for nouns. [[Interlingua]], in contrast with the Romance languages, has no irregular verb conjugations, and its verb forms are the same for all persons and numbers. It does, however, have compound verb tenses similar to those in the Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages: ''ille ha vivite'', "he has lived"; ''illa habeva vivite'', "she had lived". Nouns are inflected by number, taking a plural ''-s'', but rarely by gender: only when referring to a male or female being. Interlingua has no noun-adjective agreement by gender, number, or case. As a result, adjectives ordinarily have no inflections. They may take the plural form if they are being used in place of a noun: ''le povres'', "the poor". ==See also== *[[Agreement (linguistics)]] *[[Lexeme]] *[[Marker (linguistics)]] *[[Morpheme]] *[[Periphrasis]] *[[Suppletion]] *[[Synthetic language]] *[[Uninflected word]] *[[Weak suppletion]] == Notes == {{Reflist}} == References and recommended reading == <small> * Agirre, E.; Alegria I.; Arregi, X.; Artola, X.; Díaz de Ilarraza, A.; Maritxalar M.; et al. (1992). XUXEN: A spelling checker/corrector for Basque based on two-level morphology. ''Proceedings of the Third Conference of Applied Natural Language Processing''. Online version: http://acl.ldc.upenn.edu/A/A92/A92-1016.pdf * Bauer, Laurie. (2003). ''Introducing linguistic morphology'' (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. ISBN 0-87840-343-4. * Bubenik, Vit. (1999). ''An introduction to the study of morphology''. LINCON coursebooks in linguistics, 07. Muenchen: LINCOM Europa. ISBN 3-89586-570-2. * Haspelmath, Martin. (2002). ''Understanding morphology''. London: Arnold (co-published by Oxford University Press). ISBN 0340760257 (hb); ISBN 0-340-76206-5 (pbk). * Katamba, Francis. (1993). ''Morphology''. Modern linguistics series. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-10101-5 (hb); ISBN 0-312-10356-5 (pbk). * Matthews, Peter. (1991). ''Morphology'' (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-41043-6 (hb); ISBN 0-521-42256-6 (pbk). * Nichols, Johanna. (1986). Head-marking and dependent-marking grammar. ''Language'', ''62'' (1), 56-119. * Norman, Jerry. (1988). ''Chinese''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-29653-6 (pbk). * De Reuse, Willem J. (1996). ''A practical grammar of the San Carlos Apache language''. LINCOM Studies in Native American Linguistics 51. LINCOM. ISBN 3895868612 * Spencer, Andrew, & Zwicky, Arnold M. (Eds.) (1998). ''The handbook of morphology''. Blackwell handbooks in linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-18544-5. * Stump, Gregory T. (2001). ''Inflectional morphology: A theory of paradigm structure''. Cambridge studies in linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-78047-0. * Van Valin, Robert D., Jr. (2001). ''An introduction to syntax''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-63566-7 (pbk); ISBN 0-521-63199-8 (hb). </small> == External links == {{Wiktionary}} * [http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/i1/inflecti.asp Inflection entry at Encyclopedia.com] * <Small>SIL:</small> [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsInflection.htm What is ''inflection''?] * <Small>SIL:</small> [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAnInflectionalAffix.htm What is an ''inflectional affix''?] * <Small>SIL:</small> [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAnInflectionalCategory.htm What is an ''inflectional category''?] * <Small>SIL:</small> [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAMorphologicalProcess.htm What is a ''morphological process''?] * <Small>SIL:</small> [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsDerivation.htm What is ''derivation''?] * <Small>SIL:</small> [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/ComparisonOfInflectionAndDeriv.htm Comparison of inflection and derivation] * <Small>Lexicon of Linguistics:</small> [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Inflection Inflection], [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Derivation Derivation] * <Small>Lexicon of Linguistics:</small> [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Conjugation Conjugation], [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Declension Declension] * <Small>Lexicon of Linguistics:</small> [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Base Base], [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Stem Stem], [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Root Root] * <Small>Lexicon of Linguistics:</small> [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Defective+paradigm Defective Paradigm] * <Small>Lexicon of Linguistics:</small> [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Strong+verb Strong Verb] * <Small>Lexicon of Linguistics:</small> [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=IP Inflection Phrase (IP)], [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=INFL INFL], [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=AGR AGR], [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=tense Tense] * <Small>Lexicon of Linguistics:</small> [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Lexicalist+Hypothesis Lexicalist Hypothesis] * <Small>SIL:</small> [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAnAgglutinativeLanguage.htm What is an ''agglutinative language''?] * <Small>SIL:</small> [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAFusionalLanguage.htm What is a ''fusional language''?] * <Small>SIL:</small> [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAnIsolatingLanguage.htm What is an ''isolating language''?] * <Small>SIL:</small> [http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAPolysyntheticLanguage.htm What is a ''polysynthetic language''?] * <Small>Lexicon of Linguistics:</small> [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Agglutinating+language Agglutinating Language], [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Fusional+morphology Fusional Morphology], [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=isolating+language Isolating Language], [http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=polysynthetic+language Polysynthetic Language] [[Category:Grammar]] [[Category:Linguistic morphology]] [[af:Verbuiging]] [[ca:Flexió (lingüística)]] [[cs:Flexe]] [[cy:Ffurfiant]] [[de:Flexion]] [[es:Flexión (lingüística)]] [[eo:Fleksio]] [[fa:تصریف]] [[fr:Flexion (linguistique)]] [[io:Flexiono]] [[it:Flessione (linguistica)]] [[la:Flexio]] [[nl:Flexie]] [[ja:語形変化]] [[nn:Bøying]] [[pl:Fleksja]] [[ru:Словоизменение]] [[fi:Taivutus (kielioppi)]] [[zh:词形变化]]