Definition:
A process of word formation in which items are added to the base form of a word to express grammatical meanings. Adjective: inflectional. See also: Introduction to Etymology: Word Histories.
Etymology:
From the Latin, "to bend"Examples and Observations:
- "Inflections are morphemes that signal the grammatical variants of a word; the inflectional -s at the end of ideas indicates that the noun is plural; the inflectional -s at the end of makes indicates that the verb is the third person singular, so that we say she makes but I make and they make. In addition, some affixes signal the part of speech to which a word belongs: the prefix -en in enslave converts the noun slave into a verb, and the suffix -ize converts the adjective modern into the verb modernize."
(Sidney Greenbaum, The Oxford English Grammar. Oxford Univ. Press, 1996) - "Word endings can also be inflections, which indicate categories such as tense, person and number. The inflection -ed can change a verb from present to past tense (walk/walked), and the inflection -s can indicate third person singular concord with a subject. But inflections do not change the word class. Walk and walked are both verbs."
(Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy, Cambridge Grammar of English. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006) - "In its grammar, Old English resembles modern German. Theoretically, the noun and adjective are inflected for four cases in the singular and four in the plural; . . . the adjective has separate forms for each of the three genders."
(A. C. Baugh, A History of the English Language, 1978) - "If I talked about Watergate, I was described as struggling to free myself from the morass. If I did not talk about Watergate, I was accused of being out of touch with reality."
(Richard M. Nixon) - "Guns don't kill people, people kill people, and monkeys do too (if they have a gun)."
(Eddie Izzard)
Pronunciation: in-FLEX-shun
Also Known As: inflexion (chiefly British)
