Inflection is an alteration of certain voices.
The notion of inflection comes from the Latin word inflexio . The term has different meanings depending on the context .
An inflection can be a bowing or twisting of something that, until then, was flat or straight. The concept also refers, in the field of geometry, to the point of a curve at which a modification of the direction of its curvature occurs.
Inflection in grammar and linguistics
When the tone of voice is changed, lowering or raising it, an inflection occurs. In the specific field of grammar , meanwhile, an inflection or inflection is an alteration of certain voices that implies a change in the root vowel or in the ending to encode certain contents.
In other words, in linguistics the concept of inflection is defined as the change that words undergo through constituent morphemes according to the categorical or grammatical meaning to denote their various functions in the context of a sentence , as well as their relationships of agreement or dependence with other words or elements of the sentence. It can be said, therefore, that an inflection is an alteration that is registered in a term through morphemes that allow it to express various functions.
The morpheme is the smallest fragment with the capacity to express a meaning and modify that of a lexeme by joining it. The lexeme, for its part, is an element that has a referential meaning, that is, when combined with a word it produces an idea that the speaker can understand.
Classification according to type
Traditional grammar recognizes more than one name for inflections, depending on the class of words to which they are applied. On the one hand we have verbal inflection , which is also known as conjugation . The nominal inflection , for its part, is also called declension ; In Indo-European languages (the largest family of languages, which includes almost all those spoken in Europe and South Asia), this is usually applied to adjectives, nouns and pronouns.
When the morpheme is added at the root of the word, the so-called radical inflection occurs, while the thematic takes place when it is added to the theme. Any segment that is added to indicate an accident of inflection is known as ending .
Through verbal inflections we can specify issues such as tense, mood , person and number, all variations that we understand within the concept of conjugation. For example, "AS" is not the same as "YOU ATE." Nominal inflections, for their part, allow us to recognize the gender and number of adjectives and nouns, among other aspects. In this way, we can know that "gatOS" are two or more and that they are males or that their sex is not known, while "gatA" is one and female.
In our language, interjections and prepositions, among other categories, are considered invariable words because they do not allow inflections; In other words, its form never changes.
At the inflection point, a curve stops being concave and becomes convex or vice versa.
Inflection in geometry and climatology
If we focus on the geometric scope, the point where a function stops being convex and becomes concave or vice versa is called the inflection point . In the graph, this transformation is seen as a change in the direction of the curve.
At inflection points, the derivative function reaches its minimum and maximum. The function grows more and more until it reaches the inflection point: when it passes it, it begins to grow less.
For climatology , finally, the turning point represents the passage from one stable state to another. It is, therefore, a transition .