The History of English Podcast Episode 8: Indo-European Grammar (Where have all the inflexions gone?)
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Aug 16, 2012 AI Snips
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Inflections Are Grammar’s Building Blocks
- Inflections are modifications of words that signal role, tense, number, and gender within a sentence.
- The original Indo-European language relied heavily on inflections, which shaped Old English and many European languages.
Languages Vary From Highly To Non-Inflective
- Languages differ in how much they use inflections: Latin and German are highly inflective, Chinese is isolating with almost none.
- English sits near the non-inflective end, having shed most endings over time.
Verbs Once Had Many Distinct Endings
- Old Indo-European verbs had many distinct endings for person, number, and even a dual form for pairs.
- Modern English largely lost these endings, keeping only a few (like -s and -ed) for present and past.