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An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises

Chapter 28: PART TWO INFLECTION AND SYNTAX
By George Lyman Kittredge
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About This Book

The grammar offers an advanced, systematic treatment of English for students beyond the rudiments. It opens with a concise review of parts of speech, phrases, and clauses; proceeds to detailed coverage of inflection and syntax, including the roles and classification of subordinate clauses; and then develops sentence analysis, parsing, and the combination of clauses. An appendix supplies verb lists, conjugation tables, punctuation and capitalization rules, a summary of syntax, and a brief language history. Exercises drawn from notable writers and usage notes aimed at composition and historical differences accompany the main text.

PART TWO
INFLECTION AND SYNTAX

CHAPTER I
INFLECTION

52. Inflection is a change of form in a word indicating some change in its meaning. A word thus changed in form is said to be inflected.

Thus the nouns man, wife, dog, may change their form to man’s, wife’s, dog’s, to express possession; or to men, wives, dogs, to show that two or more are meant.

The pronouns I, she, may change their form to our, her.

The adjectives large, happy, good, may change their form to larger, happier, better, to denote a higher degree of the quality; or to largest, happiest, best, to denote the highest degree.

The verbs look, see, sing, may change their form to looked, saw, sang, to denote past time.

The examples show that a word may be inflected (1) by the addition of a final letter or syllable (dog, dogs; look, looked), (2) by the substitution of one letter for another (man, men), or (3) by a complete change of form (good, better, best).

53. The inflection of a substantive is called its declension; that of an adjective or an adverb, its comparison; that of a verb, its conjugation.

Note. Some forms which we regard as due to inflection are really distinct words. Thus we is regarded as a form of the pronoun I, but it is in fact an altogether different word. Such irregularities, however, are not numerous, and are properly enough included under the head of inflection.

The table below gives a summary view of inflection, and may be used for reference with the following chapters.

  • Substantives (Nouns and Pronouns)
    • Gender
      • Masculine (male)
      • Feminine (female)
      • Neuter (no sex)
    • Number
      • Singular (one)
      • Plural (more than one)
    • Person
      • First (speaker)
      • Second (spoken to)
      • Third (spoken of)
    • Case
      • Nominative (subject case)
      • Possessive (ownership)
      • Objective (object case)
  • Adjectives and Adverbs
    • Comparison
      • Positive Degree
      • Comparative Degree
      • Superlative Degree
  • Verbs
    • Number (Verb agrees with Subject)
      • Singular
      • Plural
    • Person (Verb agrees with Subject)
      • First
      • Second
      • Third
    • Tense
      • Simple Tenses
        • Present
        • Past
        • Future
      • Compound Tenses
        • Perfect (or Present Perfect)
        • Pluperfect (or Past Perfect)
        • Future Perfect
    • Mood
      • Indicative (all six tenses)
      • Imperative (Present Tense only)
      • Subjunctive (Present, Past, Perfect, Pluperfect)
    • Voice
      • Active (Subject acts)
      • Passive (Subject receives the action)
    • Infinitives (Present and Perfect)
    • Participles (Present, Past, and Perfect)