Inflectional morphology is the grammar glue that holds sentences together. It changes word forms to show relationships and convey meaning, like turning "cat" into "cats" or "walk" into "walked."

This grammar tool helps us express tense, number, and other key features. It's crucial for making our language clear and precise, ensuring words agree and sentences make sense.

Understanding Inflectional Morphology

Purpose of inflectional morphology

• Modifies words expressing grammatical information changes form without altering core meaning (cat → cats)
• Indicates relationships between words in sentences showing agreement (The cat purrs vs The cats purr)
• Conveys grammatical features tense, number, person, case, gender (walked, walks, walking)
• Facilitates agreement within sentences ensuring coherence (The dog barks vs The dogs bark)
• Enhances clarity and precision in communication reducing ambiguity (I walk vs He walks)

Grammatical categories in English inflection

• Number distinguishes singular from plural entities (book vs books)
• Person indicates speaker, addressee, or other (I walk, you walk, she walks)
• Tense expresses time of action or state (walk vs walked)
• Aspect shows how action unfolds over time (walking, has walked)
• Mood conveys speaker's attitude or intention (If I were you)
• Case marks noun's role in sentence (he vs him vs his)
• Comparison for adjectives and adverbs indicates degree (tall, taller, tallest)

Inflectional Patterns and Forms

Inflectional patterns for word classes

• Nouns
  • Number inflection adds -s or -es for regular plurals (dog → dogs, box → boxes)
  • Irregular plurals change word form (child → children, mouse → mice)
  • Possessive case adds 's or ' (dog's bone, dogs' bones)
• Verbs
  • Tense inflection adds -ed for regular past tense (walk → walked)
  • Third-person singular present adds -s (she walks)
  • Aspect inflection adds -ing for present participle (walking)
  • Past participle adds -ed for regular verbs (walked)
• Adjectives
  • Comparison inflection adds -er for comparative (tall → taller)
  • Superlative adds -est (tall → tallest)
  • Longer adjectives use "more" and "most" (beautiful → more beautiful → most beautiful)

Irregular inflections and usage

• Irregular noun plurals
  • Vowel changes alter internal vowel sound (man → men, goose → geese)
  • -en endings add -en to base form (ox → oxen, child → children)
  • No change plurals remain same in singular and plural (sheep, deer, fish)
• Irregular verb forms
  • Past tense irregularities change word entirely (go → went, eat → ate)
  • Past participle irregularities often end in -en (write → written, speak → spoken)
  • Be verb forms vary widely (am, is, are, was, were)
• Suppletive forms use different word roots (good → better → best, bad → worse → worst)
• Irregular comparative and superlative adjectives change form unpredictably (little → less → least, many/much → more → most)