inflectional affix

/ɪnˈflɛkʃənəl ˈæfɪks/

grammatical marker attached to words

In English, the suffix '-ed' is an inflectional affix indicating past tense.

The word 'walked' uses '-ed' to show past tense.

technical

A morpheme added to a word to indicate grammatical functions like tense, number, or case without changing its core meaning.

The Spanish verb 'hablar' (to speak) becomes 'hablo' (I speak) by adding the inflectional affix '-o'.

The '-o' suffix indicates the first-person singular subject.

In Russian, nouns change their endings (inflectional affixes) to show case.

The word 'дом' (house) becomes 'дома' (in the house) with the locative case affix.

Inflectional affixes contrast with derivational affixes, which create new words (e.g., 'happy' → 'unhappy').

inflectional affixgrammatical ending or prefix/suffixadd an inflectional affixmodify a word for grammatical purposes

affix that creates new words (e.g., '-er' in 'teacher')

smallest meaningful unit in language

Inflectional affixes change grammar (e.g., 'walk' → 'walked'), while derivational affixes create new words (e.g., 'walk' → 'walker').

Inflectional affixes never alter the core meaning of a word; they only adjust grammatical roles.

From Latin 'inflectere' (to bend) + 'affix' (to attach).

Common in languages with rich inflectional systems (e.g., Latin, Russian, German). English uses fewer inflectional affixes than many languages.

inflectional

relating to grammatical changes

adjective

affix

a morpheme attached to a word

noun

English Dictionary