* Changing grammatical function: Inflections modify a word to indicate its role in a sentence. For example, adding "-ing" to "walk" creates "walking," changing it from a verb to a gerund (a noun form of a verb).
* Indicating tense, number, or gender: Inflections signal grammatical features like past tense (walked), plural (cats), or gender (actress). These changes alter the meaning by specifying time, quantity, or identity.
* Expressing degrees of comparison: Inflections like "-er" (bigger) and "-est" (biggest) indicate comparison, changing the meaning to reflect relative size, intensity, or importance.
Example:
The word "run" has many inflections:
* runs: Indicates present tense, third-person singular (someone is running)
* running: Indicates present participle, can be used as a verb or adjective (I am running, a running race)
* ran: Indicates past tense (someone ran)
* runner: Indicates a noun, someone who runs
Each inflection changes the meaning of the word "run" in a different way.
So, inflections are not just about changing the form of a word, they're about changing its meaning in relation to the context of a sentence.