Inflected in the context of "Morphology (linguistics)"

⭐ In the context of Morphology, inflected words are primarily analyzed for how they demonstrate…

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⭐ Core Definition: Inflected

In linguistic morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and definiteness. The inflection of verbs is called conjugation, while the inflection of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc. can be called declension.

An inflection expresses grammatical categories with affixation (such as prefix, suffix, infix, circumfix, and transfix), apophony (as Indo-European ablaut), or other modifications. For example, the Latin verb ducam, meaning "I will lead", includes the suffix -am, expressing person (first), number (singular), and tense-mood (future indicative or present subjunctive). The use of this suffix is an inflection. In contrast, in the English clause "I will lead", the word lead is not inflected for any of person, number, or tense; it is simply the bare form of a verb. The inflected form of a word often contains both one or more free morphemes (a unit of meaning which can stand by itself as a word), and one or more bound morphemes (a unit of meaning which cannot stand alone as a word). For example, the English word cars is a noun that is inflected for number, specifically to express the plural; the content morpheme car is unbound because it could stand alone as a word, while the suffix -s is bound because it cannot stand alone as a word. These two morphemes together form the inflected word cars.

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👉 Inflected in the context of Morphology (linguistics)

In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, including the principles by which they are formed, and how they relate to one another within a language. Most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of morphemes, which are the smallest units in a language with some independent meaning. Morphemes include roots that can exist as words by themselves, but also categories such as affixes that can only appear as part of a larger word. For example, in English the root catch and the suffix -ing are both morphemes; catch may appear as its own word, or it may be combined with -ing to form the new word catching. Morphology also analyzes how words behave as parts of speech, and how they may be inflected to express grammatical categories including number, tense, and aspect. Concepts such as productivity are concerned with how speakers create words in specific contexts, which evolves over the history of a language.

The basic fields of linguistics broadly focus on language structure at different "scales". Morphology is considered to operate at a scale larger than phonology, which investigates the categories of speech sounds that are distinguished within a spoken language, and thus may constitute the difference between a morpheme and another. Conversely, syntax is concerned with the next-largest scale, and studies how words in turn form phrases and sentences. Morphological typology is a distinct field that categorises languages based on the morphological features they exhibit.

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Inflected in the context of Proto-Indo-European root

The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) are basic parts of words to carry a lexical meaning, so-called morphemes. PIE roots usually have verbal meaning like "to eat" or "to run". Roots never occurred alone in the language. Complete inflected verbs, nouns, and adjectives were formed by adding further morphemes to a root and potentially changing the root's vowel in a process called ablaut.

A root consists of a central vowel that is preceded and followed by at least one consonant each. A number of rules have been determined to specify which consonants can occur together, and in which order. The modern understanding of these rules is that the consonants with the highest sonority (*l, *r, *y, *n) are nearest to the vowel, and the ones with the lowest sonority such as plosives are furthest away. There are some exceptions to these rules such as thorn clusters.

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Inflected in the context of Singular they

Singular they, along with its inflected or derivative forms, them, their, theirs, and themselves (also themself and theirself for nonstandard usage), is a gender-neutral third-person pronoun derived from plural they. It typically occurs with an indeterminate antecedent, to refer to an unknown person, or to refer to every person of some group, in sentences such as:

This use of singular they had emerged by the 14th century, about a century after the plural they. Singular they has been criticized since the mid-18th century by prescriptive commentators who consider it an error. Its continued use in modern standard English has become more common and formally accepted with the move toward gender-neutral language. Some early-21st-century style guides described it as colloquial and less appropriate in formal writing. However, by 2020, most style guides and English-learning websites, such as the APA, AP, CMOS, British Council etc. accepted the singular they as a personal pronoun.

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LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← Morphology (linguistics) ← Word form ← Morphosyntactic ← Proto-Indo-European root ← Morphosyntax ← Singular they
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)
Scottish Gaelic → Lexeme → Dual (grammatical number) → Morphology (linguistics) → Word formation → Grammatical category → Grammatical tense → Grammatical case → Grammatical voice → Grammatical aspect → Grammatical person → Grammatical number → Grammatical gender → Grammatical mood → Animacy → Definiteness → Verb → Grammatical conjugation → Noun → Adjective → Adverb → Declension → Affix → Prefix → Suffix → Infix → Circumfix → Transfix → Apophony → Indo-European ablaut → Bare infinitive → Free morpheme → Bound morpheme → Number (linguistics) →