Inflections

Inflections:

An inflection is a change in the end of a word to show relationship to some other word or words.

Such changes are made only in nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs. The other parts of speech are never inflected. Latin uses prepositions too, but these only help the inflections, and are followed, according to certain rules, by changes in the end of the noun they go with. In English prepositions have to do all the work, without any help from the endings of words.

The Inflections of Nouns in Latin:

In English nouns may be made plural by the addition of such endings as -s, -es, -en: as, dogs, witches, oxen. Latin, in the same way, has certain endings to denote the plural, and other endings besides, which show the relationship of the noun to the other words in the sentence. The noun so changed is said to be in a certain Case. A list of all the cases of a noun is called the Declension of the noun. To decline a noun is to go through all its cases.

The Inflections of Verbs in Latin:

The verbs are divided into Conjugations as the nouns into declensions. Verbs are classed according to the termination of their Present Infinitive.

To love, to advise, to rule, to hear are present infinitives in English.

Am-āre, mon-ēre, reg-ere, aud-īre are the corresponding verbs in Latin.

The termination is in each case -āre, -ēre, -ere, īre; the other part may be called the Present stem.

Conjugation                    Infinitive

first...............................................-āre
second........................................-ēre
third.............................................-ere
fourth..........................................-īre