Inflection - Revision history

Ikirby: fixed spelling, added a sentence clarifying what kinds of grammatical information inflectional morphemes typically encode, added a 'see also' section with links to agreement and concord.

2021-02-08T21:53:05Z

fixed spelling, added a sentence clarifying what kinds of grammatical information inflectional morphemes typically encode, added a 'see also' section with links to agreement and concord.

Haspelmath: /* Term proprties */

2009-02-15T22:20:20Z

Term proprties

Haspelmath at 22:20, 15 February 2009

2009-02-15T22:20:11Z

Wohlgemuth: utrecht

2009-02-15T17:08:56Z

utrecht

New page

'''Inflection''' is a one of the main types of morphological operations by which an affix is added to a word. An inflectional affix adds a particular grammatical function to a word without changing the category of that word, or even leading to a different word. We may say that inflected forms are just variants of one and the same word.

=== Example ===

count nouns in English can be pluralized by adding the inflectional ending -''s'' (''dog-dogs'', ''noun-nouns''). The plural forms ''dogs'' and ''nouns'' are variants of the base nouns ''dog'' and ''noun''. Traditionally inflection is distinguished from [[derivation]] (the second type of major morphological operation). Although it is not possible to draw a sharp border between both types of operation, there are at least two differences: (i) inflection is never category changing, while derivation typically is category changing, and (ii) inflection is usually peripheral to derivation. Some linguists (e.g. Aronoff (1976), Anderson (1982), Perlmutter (1988)) assume that inflection and derivation belong to different components of the grammar. This view is not uncontroversial though, since others (e.g. Halle (1973), Kiparsky (1982)) assume that inflection and derivation are reflexes of one and the same operation, namely affixation.

=== Link ===

[http://www2.let.uu.nl/UiL-OTS/Lexicon/zoek.pl?lemma=Inflection&lemmacode=674 Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics]

=== References ===

* Anderson, S.R. 1982. ''Where's Morphology?,'' Linguistic Inquiry 13, pp. 571-612, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
* Aronoff, M. 1976. ''Word Formation in Generative Grammar,'' MIT-press, Cambridge, Mass.
* Chomsky, N. 1993. ''A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory,'' MIT occasional papers in linguistics, 1-67. Reprinted in: Chomsky (1995).
* Chomsky, N. 1955. ''The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory,'' University of Chicago Press, Chicago(1975).
* Halle, M. 1973. ''Prolegomena to a Theory of Word-Formation,'' Linguistic Inquiry 4, pp. 451-464
* Kiparsky, P. 1982. ''From Cyclic Phonology to Lexical Phonology,'' in: Hulst, H. van der and N. Smith (eds.) The Structure of Phonological Representations (I), pp.131-175
* Perlmutter, D. 1988. ''The Split-morphology Hypothesis: evidence from Yiddish,'' in: Hammond, M. and M. Noonan (eds.) Theoretical Morphology: Approaches in Modern Linguistics, Orlando, Academic Press.
* Pollock, J.-Y. 1989. ''Verb movement, Universal Grammar, and the structure of IP,'' Linguistic Inquiry 20, pp.365-424

=== Syntax ===

inflectional affixes have recently been analyzed as the source or head of [[functional projections]] like [[IP]] ,[[AGRP]], [[DP]], etc.

=== Example ===

if (i)a is the underlying syntactic structure of ''John walks'', the ultimate stage of which is the result of either Affix hopping (cf. (i)b) or [[Verb movement]] (cf. (i)c) (both syntactic operations) then inflection is not a morphologcal but a syntactic phenomenon.

(i) a [IP John [I' [I -s ] [VP [V walk ]]]]
b [IP John [I' ej [VP [V [V walk ] [I -s ]j ] ]]]
c [IP John [I' [I [V walk ]j [I -s ]] [VP ej ]]]

If, on the other hand, ''walks'' is inserted in its fully inflected form, and adjoins to I merely to check its inflectional features (cf. (ii)), inflection remains a morphological operation.

(ii) a [IP John [I' [I e ] [VP [V walks ]]]]
b [IP John [I' [I [V walks ]j [I e ]] [VP ej ]]]

 

{{dc}}
[[Category:Morphology]]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-'''Inflection''' is a one of the main types of morphological operations by which an [[affix]] is added to a word. An inflectional affix adds a particular grammatical function to a word without changing the category of that word, or even leading to a different word. We may say that inflected forms are just variants of one and the same word.
+'''Inflection''' is a one of the main types of morphological operations by which an [[affix]] is added to a word. An inflectional affix adds a particular grammatical function to a word without changing the category of that word, or even leading to a different word. We may say that inflected forms are just variants of one and the same word.  Some examples of grammatical information that can be encoded by inflectional morphemes include [[Phi-features]] (e.g. [[person]], [[number]], [[gender]], [[case]]), [[mood]], [[tense]], and [[aspect]].
-===Term proprties===
+===Term properties===
 The relational adjective is ''inflectional''. An alternative spelling (confined to British English and increasingly outdated) is ''inflexion''.
@@ Line 9: / Line 9: @@
 ===Comments===
-Traditionally inflection is distinguished from [[derivation]] (the second type of major morphological operation). Although it is not possible to draw a sharp boundary between both types of operation, there are at least two differences: (i) inflection is never category-changing, while derivation typically is category changing, and (ii) inflection is usually peripheral to derivation. Some linguists (e.g. Aronoff (1976), Anderson (1982), Perlmutter (1988)) assume that inflection and derivation belong to different components of the grammar. This view is not uncontroversial though, since others (e.g. Halle (1973), Kiparsky (1982)) assume that inflection and derivation are reflexes of one and the same operation, namely affixation.
+Traditionally inflection is distinguished from [[derivation]] (the second type of major morphological operation). Although it is not possible to draw a sharp boundary between both types of operation, there are at least two differences: (i) inflection is never category-changing, while derivation often category changing, and (ii) inflection is usually peripheral to derivation. Some linguists (e.g. Aronoff (1976), Anderson (1982), Perlmutter (1988)) assume that inflection and derivation belong to different components of the grammar. This view is not uncontroversial though, since others (e.g. Halle (1973), Kiparsky (1982)) assume that inflection and derivation are reflexes of one and the same operation, namely affixation.
 === Link ===
@@ Line 22: / Line 27: @@
 * Chomsky, N. 1955. ''The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory,'' University of Chicago Press, Chicago(1975).
 * Halle, M. 1973. ''Prolegomena to a Theory of Word-Formation,'' Linguistic Inquiry 4, pp. 451-464
 * Kiparsky, P. 1982. ''From Cyclic Phonology to Lexical Phonology,'' in: Hulst, H. van der and N. Smith (eds.) The Structure of Phonological Representations (I), pp.131-175
 * Perlmutter, D. 1988. ''The Split-morphology Hypothesis: evidence from Yiddish,'' in: Hammond, M. and M. Noonan (eds.) Theoretical Morphology: Approaches in Modern Linguistics, Orlando, Academic Press.

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 ===Term proprties===
-The relational adjective is ''inflectional''. An altrnative spelling (confined to British English and increasingly outdated) is ''inflexion''.
+The relational adjective is ''inflectional''. An alternative spelling (confined to British English and increasingly outdated) is ''inflexion''.
 === Examples ===

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-'''Inflection''' is a one of the main types of morphological operations by which an affix is added to a word. An inflectional affix adds a particular grammatical function to a word without changing the category of that word, or even leading to a different word. We may say that inflected forms are just variants of one and the same word.
+'''Inflection''' is a one of the main types of morphological operations by which an [[affix]] is added to a word. An inflectional affix adds a particular grammatical function to a word without changing the category of that word, or even leading to a different word. We may say that inflected forms are just variants of one and the same word.
-=== Example ===
+===Term proprties===
-count nouns in English can be pluralized by adding the inflectional ending -''s'' (''dog-dogs'', ''noun-nouns''). The plural forms ''dogs'' and ''nouns'' are variants of the base nouns ''dog'' and ''noun''. Traditionally inflection is distinguished from [[derivation]] (the second type of major morphological operation). Although it is not possible to draw a sharp border between both types of operation, there are at least two differences: (i) inflection is never category changing, while derivation typically is category changing, and (ii) inflection is usually peripheral to derivation. Some linguists (e.g. Aronoff (1976), Anderson (1982), Perlmutter (1988)) assume that inflection and derivation belong to different components of the grammar. This view is not uncontroversial though, since others (e.g. Halle (1973), Kiparsky (1982)) assume that inflection and derivation are reflexes of one and the same operation, namely affixation.
+=== Examples ===
 === Link ===
@@ Line 18: / Line 24: @@
 * Kiparsky, P. 1982. ''From Cyclic Phonology to Lexical Phonology,'' in: Hulst, H. van der and N. Smith (eds.) The Structure of Phonological Representations (I), pp.131-175
 * Perlmutter, D. 1988. ''The Split-morphology Hypothesis: evidence from Yiddish,'' in: Hammond, M. and M. Noonan (eds.) Theoretical Morphology: Approaches in Modern Linguistics, Orlando, Academic Press.
-* Pollock, J.-Y. 1989. ''Verb movement, Universal Grammar, and the structure of IP,'' Linguistic Inquiry 20, pp.365-424
+* Pollock, J.-Y. 1989. ''Verb movement, Universal Grammar, and the structure of IP,'' Linguistic Inquiry 20, pp.365-424.
-<br />
+===Other languages===
 {{dc}}
 [[Category:Morphology]]