Everything about Uninflected Word totally explained
In the context of
linguistic morphology, an
uninflected word is a
word that has no morphological
markers (
inflection) such as
affixes,
ablaut,
consonant gradation, etc., indicating
declension or
conjugation. If a word has an uninflected form, this is usually the form used as the
lemma for the word.
In
English and many other
languages, uninflected words include
prepositions,
interjections and
conjunctions, often called
invariable words. These can't be inflected under any circumstances (unless they're used as different parts of speech, as in "ifs and buts", or "humming and hawing").
Only words which can't be inflected at all should be called "uninflected" or "invariable", but in common usage these terms can be extended to words that appear in their basic form. For example, English
nouns are said to be uninflected in the
singular, while they show inflection in the
plural (represented by the affix
-s/-es).
In the strict sense, only English
mass nouns (such as
sand,
information, or
equipment) are truly uninflected, since they've only one form that doesn't change;
count nouns are always inflected for number, even if the singular inflection is shown by an "invisible" affix (the
null morpheme). In the same way, English verbs are inflected for person and tense even if the morphology showing those categories is realized as null morphemes. In contrast, other
analytic languages like
Mandarin Chinese have true uninflected nouns and verbs, where the notions of number and tense are completely absent. The term "uninflected" can also be restricted to one or more morphological features; for example, one can say that
Japanese verbs are uninflected for person and number, but they do inflect for tense, politeness, and several moods and aspects.
In many
inflected languages, such as
Greek and
Russian, some nouns and adjectives of foreign origin are left uninflected in contexts where native words would be inflected; for instance, the name
Abraam in Greek (from
Hebrew), the Modern Greek word μπλε
ble (from
French bleu), the
Italian word
computer, and the
Russian words (kangaroo) and (coat, from French
paletot).
In
German all
modal particles are uninflected.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Uninflected Word'.
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