Question

Which set of words correctly exemplifies inflection?

• A. A. sing → singer → song
• B. B. quick → quickly → quickness
• C. C. walk → walks → walked → walking
• D. D. happy → happiness → unhappy

Answer 1

Answer:

C. C. walk → walks → walked → walking

Understanding Inflection in English Grammar

• Inflection refers to the process of adding affixes (usually suffixes) to a word to change its grammatical function or meaning, without changing its core lexical category (e.g., a verb remains a verb, a noun remains a noun).
• This process creates different grammatical forms of the same word. For example, 'walk' is a verb, and 'walks,' 'walked,' and 'walking' are also forms of the verb 'walk.'
• Inflectional changes convey grammatical information such as tense, number, person, case, mood, or aspect.
• In English, inflection is relatively limited compared to highly inflected languages like Latin or German.

Key Inflectional Categories in English:

• Verbs: Verbs inflect for tense (past/present), person (third-person singular present), and aspect (present participle/past participle).
  • Example: walk (base form) → walks (third-person singular present) → walked (past tense/past participle) → walking (present participle/gerund).
• Nouns: Nouns primarily inflect for number (singular/plural) and possession (genitive case).
  • Example: cat → cats (plural); cat → cat's (possessive singular).
• Adjectives/Adverbs: These inflect for degree of comparison.
  • Example: big → bigger (comparative) → biggest (superlative).
• Pronouns: Many pronouns show inflection for case (nominative, objective, possessive) and number.
  • Example: I (nominative) → me (objective) → my/mine (possessive).

Inflection vs. Derivation (Important Distinction for Exams):

• Inflection: Changes grammatical function/meaning but maintains the word's core meaning and part of speech. It adds grammatical markers.
• Derivation: Changes the word's lexical category (part of speech) or creates a new word with a significantly different meaning. It creates new lexemes.
  • Example of Derivation: walk (verb) → walker (noun); happy (adjective) → unhappy (adjective, but with opposite meaning) → happiness (noun).

Relevance to Competitive Exams:

• Questions on inflection test your understanding of basic English grammar, word formation, and parts of speech.
• Identifying inflected forms helps in understanding sentence structure, subject-verb agreement, and correct usage of tenses.
• Distinguishing between inflection and derivation is a common question type, assessing your knowledge of morphology.