Inflections in English

Inflections in English Inflections in English Inflections in English By Maeve Maddox Inflections are word elements that indicate grammatical relationships among the words in a sentence. For example, the verb walked is in the past tense; we know this because of the inflectional ending -ed. The noun girls is plural. We know this because of the s that has been added to the singular word girl. All languages make use of inflections. Those that make use of a great many inflections–like Latin–are called â€Å"synthetic languages.† Those that do not have so many–like English–are called â€Å"analytic languages.† The low incidence of inflections in English requires speakers to pay attention to word order. In Latin, on the other hand, word order hardly matters. Take nouns as an example. In Latin, nouns have special forms, according to whether the noun is being used as the subject of a sentence, the direct object, the indirect object, a complement, a noun with a built-in preposition, a possessive noun, or a noun of address. In English, except for possession and number, a noun is a noun is a noun. If we look at the English word girl out of the context of a sentence, we know it’s a noun, but we can’t tell anything else about its grammatical function until it is used in a sentence. If we look at the Latin noun puellam (girl), we know that it is the direct object form. The form puella is a subject form. Puellae is genitive (possessive) form meaning â€Å"of the girl.† Because the inflections are â€Å"built in,† their order in a sentence doesn’t much matter. In English, however, word order tells us if a noun is a subject or an object. If it comes before the verb (usually) a noun is a subject. If it comes after an action verb, it’s an object. For example, in English, â€Å"The boy loves the girl† means something different from â€Å"The girl loves the boy.† In Latin, on the other hand, Puer puellam amat, Puellam puer amat, and Amat puellam puer all mean the same thing: â€Å"The boy loves the girl.† Then there are the adjectives. Latin adjectives have to accord with the nouns. To say, â€Å"The big boy loves the pretty girl† you write: Puer magnus puellam bellam amat. To write, â€Å"The pretty girl loves the big boy,† you can leave the words in the same order, but you have to change the endings to show function and gender: Puella bella puerum magnum amat. Because English retains so few inflections, it is a little surprising that so many of the errors we discuss on this site have to do with the few inflections that do remain. Nouns Nouns are inflected by the addition of an apostrophe to show possession: The boy’s backpack was stolen. (singular noun, ’s) The boys’ backpacks were stolen. (plural noun, s’). The letter s is usually added to a noun to form the plural: The girl climbed Mount Everest. The girls climbed Mount Everest. Errors with plural nouns occur with words that do not form the plural by adding s, for example, woman/women; calf/calves, etc. Errors in placing the apostrophe are quite common. For example: â€Å"The mens’ locker room† instead of â€Å"the men’s locker room.† Some uncertain writers sprinkle apostrophes in very unlikely places: Chloe sing’s with the choir. (Should be sings) The dog hurt it’s paw. (Should be its paw) Verbs Regular verbs are inflected to show past tense by adding the suffix -ed: talk, talked, (have) talked. Errors occur with verbs that indicate past tense by changes in spelling, for example, write, wrote, (have) written. See the DWT post Beware of the Irregular Past Participle. Pronouns Because pronouns have retained more inflected forms than nouns, they are the source of probably half the grammatical errors made by native speakers. The inflections that give trouble with the personal pronouns are these: Subject forms: I, he, she, we, they Object forms: me, him, her, us, them For more on pronoun case, see All Pronoun Cases Are Created Equal. Possessive forms are of two kinds: those that stand for a noun (possessive pronouns), and those that stand before a noun to show possession (possessive adjectives). Possessive pronouns: mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs Possessive adjectives: my, your, his, her, its, our, their For example, That book is mine. (Possessive pronoun standing for book) That is my book. (Possessive adjective qualifying book) The pronouns you and it present no problems because they are the same in both their subject and object forms. Other errors with the possessive forms are misspelling its and using their with a singular antecedent: Wrong: The house is having it’s roof replaced. Correct: The house is having its roof replaced. Wrong: Every scout will do their duty. Correct: Every scout will do his duty. Adjectives Adjectives are inflected to show comparison. This article illustrates the different ways of doing it: Comparative Forms of Adjectives Adverbs Adverbs are also inflected to show comparison. Adverbs that end in -ly are inflected by adding more and most in front of them: happily, more happily, most happily. Note: Some authorities regard the comparison of adjectives and adverbs as word formation rather than inflection. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar 101 category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Addressing A Letter to Two PeopleFor Sale vs. On SaleDrama vs. Melodrama

Second-Person Pronouns - Definition and Examples

Seconds Pronouns used when a speaker addresses one or more individuals. In contemporary standard English, these are the second-person pronouns: you (singular and plural personal pronoun)yours (singular and plural possessive pronoun)yourself and yourselves (singular and plural reflexive/intensive pronouns) In addition, your is the second-person possessive determiner. As discussed below, other second-person pronouns (such as thee, thou, and ye) have been used in the past, and some (such as yall and yous[e]) are still used today in certain dialects of English. Examples: You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.  (Christian Bale as Batman in The Dark Knight, 2008)Do you know whats waiting beyond that beach? Immortality! Take it! Its yours! (Brad Pitt as Achilles in Troy, 2004)The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. Its a good non-specific symptom... What you do is, you fake a stomach cramp, and when youre bent over, moaning and wailing, you lick your palms. Its a little childish and stupid, but then, so is high school.  (Matthew Broderick as Ferris in Ferris Buellers Day Off, 1986)Laila came over here to braid yalls hair, but left cause yall wasnt here.  (Jesmyn Ward, Where the Line Bleeds. Agate Bolden, 2008)I hope the good white people round here kill all yall off.  (Ernest J. Gaines, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, 1971)But I need to ask you guys a big favor.Ask and you shall receive, my son, said Tradd.  (Pat Conroy, The Lords of Discipline, 1980(Be off, Im tellin yous, your selves an your pound on demand! (Sean OCasey, Five Irish Plays, 1935) Drive thy business, or it will drive thee.  (Benjamin Franklin)Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit.  (John 15: 16, The King James Bible, 1611)Thou shalt prepare thee a way, and divide the coasts of thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee to inherit.  (Deuteronomy, 19:3, The King James Bible, 1611)O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!Thy mists, that roll and rise!Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sagAnd all but cry with colour! That gaunt cragTo crush!   To lift the lean of that black bluff!World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!(Edna St. Vincent Millay, Gods World. Renascence and Other Poems, 1917) Observations: [R]esearch has found that the inclusion of second-person pronouns in a message increases peoples motivation to attend to a message (Burnkrant Unnava, 1989).​(David R. Roskos-Ewoldsen, What Is the Role of Rhetorical Questions in Persuasion? Communication and Emotion: Essays in Honor of Dolf Zillmann, ed. by Jennings Bryant et al. Lawrence Erlbaum, 2003) Thou and Ye Forms As early as the late thirteenth century, the second person plural forms (ye, you, your) began to be used with singular meaning in circumstances of politeness or formality, leaving the singular forms (thou, thee, thy/thine) for intimate, familiar use. In imitation of the French use of vous and tu, the English historically plural y-forms were used in addressing a superior, whether by virtue of social status or age and in upper-class circles among equals, though high-born lovers might slip into the th-forms in situations of intimacy. The th-forms were also used by older to younger and by socially superior to socially inferior.  (John Algeo and Thomas Payne, The Origin and Development of the English Language, 5th ed. Thomson Wadsworth, 2005) Ye and You In early Middle English, ye was used in subject position, and it marked plurality, whilst you was used in object position, also marking plurality... Singularity was marked by thee and thou. In the fourteenth century, this system began to change, and you began to be used in subject position, as today. As you usage increased over the fifteenth century, ye and you began to lose their function of marking plurality, and by the end of the period they were used for both singular and plural referents, in both subject and object position.  (Peter Brown, A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture C.1350 - C.1500. Blackwell, 2007)    Thou and You Thou ... had in Old English been used when addressing only one person, and you when addressing more. By the sixteenth century, this had changed; the difference was social, with thou expressing intimacy or possibly condescension, while you was chillier or more respectful. The distinction disappeared in the seventeenth century from written English, and from most spoken English also, though one may still hear it in Yorkshireit is memorably frequent in Barry Hiness novel A Kestrel for a Knave, set in 1960s Barnsley. By contrast, other languages in Western Europe continue to draw such a distinction: in some, notably French, it is important, while in others, such as Spanish and Swedish, the formal address is now not much used. Todays yous, widely heard in Ireland, and youse, heard on Merseyside and in Australia, revive and make explicit the difference between the plural you and the singular. So, too, does the American yall.  (Henry Hitchings, The Language Wars. John Murray, 2011) Plurals: Yall, Yalls, All yalls and You Guys Since you was now both singular and plural, how could you make clear that you were speaking to more than one?In the United States, the best the North can do is the casual you guys. But the South has found a comfortable solution: yall...Clear evidence that yall is one word instead of two is the possessive form yalls. For example, Mamos Garlic Sauce of Austin, Texas, posts on its website a collection of Yalls Recipes ...Some Southerners dont accept the explanation that yall is the plural of you. They insist that yall is just another way of saying you, with either singular or plural meaning. They contend that to make a plural, you must say all yall...But for now many Southerners still would reject the notion that yall can be properly applied to only one person.  (Allan A. Metcalf, How We Talk: American Regional English Today. Houghton Mifflin, 2000) A Users Guide to Yall Let me offer a quick user’s guide to y’all, because there’s a lot of bad information floating around on the internet. It’s a contraction of you all, obviously, a phrase with the same structure and purpose as the British you lot. The southern iteration is naturally disposed to being contracted, although people do use the expanded you all. In general, it seems you all is more likely to be the object, while y’all is the subject, although rhythm is probably the most important factor. Another iteration is all y’all, which is used to encompass an entire group in situations where, because the group has natural subsets, ambiguity might otherwise emerge.No matter what you might have heard, y’all should not be used as a singular. (E.G. Austin, Y’all Hear This. The Economist, Sep. 19, 2011)