"Inflections" Pronounce,Meaning And Examples

"Inflections" Meaning

In linguistics, inflections refer to changes in the form of a word that indicate its grammatical function, tense, case, number, or voice, but not its core meaning. In other words, inflections are small additions or alterations to the word's form that convey grammatical information, such as adding -s to a noun to indicate plurality, or changing the verb ending to indicate tense or mood.

"Inflections" Examples

Inflections

Definition

Inflections are changes that can be made to a word's form to show whether it is a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb, and to indicate tense, number, case, mood, voice, and person.

Examples

1. Verb Inflections

I run (present tense) → I ran (past tense) → I will run (future tense)

2. Noun Inflections

cat (singular) → cats (plural)
child (singular) → children (plural)

3. Adjective Inflections

big (positive) → bigger (comparative) → biggest (superlative)
hard (positive) → harder (comparative) → hardest (superlative)

4. Adverb Inflections

quickly (positive) → quicker (comparative) → quickest (superlative)
well (positive) → better (comparative) → best (superlative)

5. French Inflections

parler (to speak) → parlons (let's speak) → parlent (they speak)
être (to be) → suis (I am) → es-tu (are you) → est (he/she/it is)