Inflection - Examples in English

Examples in English

In English most nouns are inflected for number with the inflectional plural affix -s (as in "dog" → "dog-s"), and most English verbs are inflected for tense with the inflectional past tense affix -ed (as in "call" → "call-ed"). English also inflects verbs by affixation to mark the third person singular in the present tense (with -s), and the present participle (with -ing). English short adjectives are inflected to mark comparative and superlative forms (with -er and -est respectively). In addition, English also shows inflection by ablaut (sound change, mostly in verbs) and umlaut (a particular type of sound change, mostly in nouns), as well as long-short vowel alternation. For example:

• Write, wrote, written (marking by ablaut variation, and also suffixing in the participle)
• Sing, sang, sung (ablaut)
• Foot, feet (marking by umlaut variation)
• Mouse, mice (umlaut)
• Child, children (ablaut, and also suffixing in the plural)