Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion – sometimes called accidence – is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, and mood. The inflection of verbs is also called conjugation, and one can refer to the inflection of nouns, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, determiners, participles, prepositions, postpositions, numerals, articles etc., as declension.
An inflection expresses one or more grammatical categories with a prefix, suffix or infix, or another internal modification such as a vowel change. For example, the Latin verb ducam, meaning “I will lead”, includes the suffix -am, expressing person (first), number (singular), and tense-mood (future indicative or present subjunctive). The use of this suffix is an inflection. In contrast, in the English clause “I will lead”, the word lead is not inflected for any of person, number, or tense; it is simply the bare form of a verb.
The inflected form of a word often contains both one or more free morphemes (a unit of meaning which can stand by itself as a word), and one or more bound morphemes (a unit of meaning which cannot stand alone as a word). For example, the English word cars is a noun that is inflected for number, specifically to express the plural; the content morpheme car is unbound because it could stand alone as a word, while the suffix -s is bound because it cannot stand alone as a word. These two morphemes together form the inflected word cars.
Words that are never subject to inflection are said to be invariant; for example, the English verb must is an invariant item: it never takes a suffix or changes form to signify a different grammatical category. Its categories can be determined only from its context.
Requiring the forms or inflections of more than one word in a sentence to be compatible with each other according to the rules of the language is known as concord or agreement. For example, in “the choir sings”, “choir” is a singular noun, so “sing” is constrained in the present tense to use the third person singular suffix “s”.
Languages that have some degree of inflection are synthetic languages. These can be highly inflected (such as Latin, Greek, Spanish, Biblical Hebrew, and Sanskrit), or weakly inflected (such as English). Languages that are so inflected that a sentence can consist of a single highly inflected word (such as many American Indian languages) are called polysynthetic languages. Languages in which each inflection conveys only a single grammatical category, such as Finnish, are known as agglutinative languages, while languages in which a single inflection can convey multiple grammatical roles (such as both nominative case and plural, as in Latin and German) are called fusional. Languages such as Mandarin Chinese that never use inflections are called analytic or isolating.
Tone (noun)
A specific pitch.
Tone (noun)
(in the diatonic scale) An interval of a major second.
Tone (noun)
(in a Gregorian chant) A recitational melody.
Tone (noun)
The character of a sound, especially the timbre of an instrument or voice.
Tone (noun)
General character, mood, or trend.
“Her rousing speech gave an upbeat tone to the rest of the evening.”
Tone (noun)
The pitch of a word that distinguishes a difference in meaning, for example in Chinese.
Tone (noun)
A whining style of speaking; a kind of mournful or artificial strain of voice; an affected speaking with a measured rhythm and a regular rise and fall of the voice.
“Children often read with a tone.”
Tone (noun)
The manner in which speech or writing is expressed.
Tone (noun)
State of mind; temper; mood.
Tone (noun)
The shade or quality of a colour.
Tone (noun)
The favourable effect of a picture produced by the combination of light and shade, or of colours.
“This picture has tone.”
Tone (noun)
The definition and firmness of a muscle or organ. see also: tonus
Tone (noun)
The state of a living body or of any of its organs or parts in which the functions are healthy and performed with due vigor.
Tone (noun)
Normal tension or responsiveness to stimuli.
Tone (verb)
to give a particular tone to
Tone (verb)
to change the colour of
Tone (verb)
to make (something) firmer
Tone (verb)
to harmonize, especially in colour
Tone (verb)
To utter with an affected tone.
Tone (pronoun)
The one (of two).
Inflection (noun)
A change in the form of a word that reflects a change in grammatical function.
“an inflection for gender, number, or tense”
Inflection (noun)
A change in pitch or tone of voice.
Inflection (noun)
A change in curvature from concave to convex or from convex to concave.
Inflection (noun)
A turning away from a straight course.
Inflection (noun)
diffraction
Tone (noun)
a musical or vocal sound with reference to its pitch, quality, and strength
“they were speaking in hushed tones”
“the piano tone appears lacking in warmth”
Tone (noun)
a modulation of the voice expressing a particular feeling or mood
“a firm tone of voice”
Tone (noun)
a musical note or other sound used as a signal on a telephone or answering machine.
Tone (noun)
the general character or attitude of a place, piece of writing, situation, etc.
“there was a general tone of ill-concealed glee in the reporting”
“my friend and I lowered the tone with our oafish ways”
Tone (noun)
an atmosphere of respectability or class
“they don’t feel he gives the place tone”
Tone (noun)
a basic interval in classical Western music, equal to two semitones and separating, for example, the first and second notes of an ordinary scale (such as C and D, or E and F sharp); a major second
“the B flat clarinet’s part is written one tone higher than the pitch required”
Tone (noun)
the particular quality of brightness, deepness, or hue of a shade of a colour
“an attractive colour which is even in tone and texture”
“stained glass in vivid tones of red and blue”
Tone (noun)
the general effect of colour or of light and shade in a picture.
Tone (noun)
a slight degree of difference in the intensity of a colour.
Tone (noun)
(in some languages, such as Chinese) a particular pitch pattern on a syllable used to make semantic distinctions.
Tone (noun)
(in some languages, such as English) intonation on a word or phrase used to add functional meaning.
Tone (noun)
the normal level of firmness or slight contraction in a resting muscle
“a reduction of muscle tone”
“a certain amount of daily exercise is essential to maintain proper body tone and function”
Tone (noun)
the normal level of activity in a nerve fibre
“vagal tone”
Tone (verb)
give greater strength or firmness to (the body or a muscle)
“exercise tones up the muscles”
Tone (verb)
(of a muscle or other bodily part) became stronger or firmer
“his leg muscles had toned up”
Tone (verb)
harmonize with (something) in terms of colour
“the rich orange colour of the wood tones beautifully with the yellow roses”
Tone (verb)
give (a monochrome picture) an altered colour in finishing by means of a chemical solution
“it’s a good idea to sepia tone the whole print first”