Editing Linguistics (section)

===== Types of Inflections =====
Inflection often involves agreement between nouns and other parts of speech, such as adjectives, pronouns, and verbs. 

'''Cases''' indicate the grammatical role of a noun or pronoun in a sentence, such as subject, object, or possession. Common cases include: <u>Nominative</u> - subject of the verb; <u>Accusative</u> - direct object of the verb; <u>Dative</u> - indirect object of the verb; <u>Genitive</u> - possessive relation; <u>Locative</u> - location; <u>Instrumental</u> - means by which an action is performed; <u>Ablative</u> - movement away from something; <u>Vocative</u> - direct address; <u>Allative</u> - movement toward something.

'''Number''' distinguishes between one (<u>singular</u>), two (<u>dual</u>), and more than two (<u>plural</u>) entities, with some languages having additional distinctions - some languages distinguish between 'a few' and 'many' (<u>paucal</u>) or may have a particular inflection for a collective quantity. 

'''Gender''' in language can be a way to classify nouns and pronouns, often impacting agreement with adjectives, verbs, and pronouns; can generally include <u>masculine</u>, <u>feminine</u>, <u>neuter</u>, and/or <u>common</u>, among others.

'''Animacy''' can also play a role similar to gender in some languages, with <u>animate</u> or <u>inanimate</u> objects having distinct inflection markers.

'''Definiteness''' distinguishes between specific and non-specific objects ('the' versus 'a/an'). 

'''Partitive''' is used in to express something being 'part of' some bigger or greater whole. 

'''Comparison''' markers indicate comparative and superlative forms.

Many languages have <u>unique declension categories</u> not widely found elsewhere, reflecting specific semantic or syntactic distinctions important in those languages. 

In <u>English</u> most nouns are inflected for number with the inflectional plural affix ''-s'' (as in "dog" → "dog-'''s'''"), and most English verbs are inflected for 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). Despite the general regularization, <u>English</u> retains traces of its ancestry, with a minority of its words still using inflection by '''ablaut''' (sound change, mostly in verbs) and umlaut (a particular type of sound change, mostly in nouns), as well as long-short vowel alternation. 

* ''Write, wrote, written'' (marking by '''ablaut''' variation, and also suffixing in the participle); s''ing, sang, sung'' (ablaut); ''foot, feet'' (marking by '''umlaut''' variation); ''mouse, mice'' (umlaut); ''child, children'' (ablaut, and also suffixing in the plural)
In <u>Latin</u>, there are five types of declension. Words that belong to the <u>first declension</u> usually end in ''-a'' and are usually feminine in gender, and thus can be said to share a common '''inflectional framework'''. In <u>Old English</u>, nouns are divided into two major categories of declension, ''strong'' and ''weak'''.''''' Through the process of '''syncretism''', the same inflection form may serve multiple grammatical functions in many languages, and context helps reveal the semantic details.

Morphemes can be added to inflectional languages in a variety of ways: 

* '''Affixation''', or simply adding morphemes onto the word without changing the root;
* '''Reduplication''', repeating all or part of a word to change its meaning;
* '''Alternation''', exchanging one sound for another in the root (usually vowel sounds, as in the ablaut / umlaut in <u>Germanic</u> languages);
* '''Suprasegmental''' variations, such as of '''stress''', '''pitch''' or '''tone''', where no sounds are added or changed but the intonation and relative strength of each sound is altered regularly.