ENGL 202
Prof. G. Steinberg
Inflection

For a web-based PowerPoint presentation on the inflections in modern-day English, click here.

Examine the following data.

English Pidgin Latin
a good man gudfela man vir bonus
a good woman gudfela meri femina bona
a big house bigfela haus casa magna
a little book smolfela buk liber parvus
a man's wife meri bilong man viri uxor
a woman's house haus bilong meri feminae casa
a wall of a house wol bilong haus casae paries
I see. Mi luk. Video.
He sees. Em i-luk. Videt.
She sees. Em i-luk. Videt.
I see a man. Mi lukim man. Virum video.
He sees a woman. Em i-lukim meri. Feminam videt.
She reads a book. Em i-ridim buk. Librum legit.
I see him. Mi lukim. Eum video.
He sees her. Em i-lukim. Eam videt.
She reads it. Em i-ridim. Eum legit.
You see. Yu luk. Vides.
You saw. Yu luk. Vidisti.
They (are) read(ing) a book. Em i-ridim buk. Librum legunt.
They (have) read a book. Em i-ridim buk. Librum legerunt.
This man is big. Disfela man i-bigfela. Magnus hic vir.
This woman is good. Disfela meri i-gudfela. Bona haec femina.
He is a man. Em i-man. Vir est.
It is a book. Em i-buk. Liber est.
It is raining. I-ren. Pluit.

Each of the following sentences describes the grammatical system of one or more of the three languages above.  For this exercise, you should suppose that the expressions given above represent the complete corpus of each language.  Of which of the languages are the following statements true?

  1. Nouns must be modified by an article, a pronoun, or a possessive noun.



  2. Adjectives, as a part of speech, can always be identified by their endings.


  3. Adjectives have endings that change according to the nouns they modify.


  4. Adjectives usually follow the nouns they modify.


  5. Possession is sometimes shown by a function word.


  6. Possession is sometimes shown by inflection.


  7. The pronoun of the third person has different forms for different genders.


  8. Nouns change their form when they are the object of a verb.


  9. Pronouns change their form when they are the object of a verb.


  10. Verbs have a special ending when there is a direct object expressed or implied.


  11. Verbs change their form to agree with certain subjects.


  12. Verbs change their form to show the time of the action (tense).


  13. Grammatical meaning is shown by changes of vowel pronunciation within a word as well as by endings.


  14. A linking verb is required in all sentences of the type "X is Y."


  15. Every sentence must have a subject.


  16. The usual word order of sentences is subject-verb-object.


Translate these expressions into the other two languages:

English Pidgin Latin
a big man  

 

  
 

 

 smolfela meri  
   

 

 paries magnus
the man's good book  

 

  
She is a woman.  

 

  
 

 

 Disfela haus i-smolfela.  
 

 

   Eum legunt.
 

 

   Librum vides.
  Em i-lukim buk.  

 

Examine the following data from Persian.  Note that xar- means "buy," and -id indicates past tense.

Persian Translation Persian Translation
xaridam I bought namixaridand they were not buying
xaridi you (sing.) bought naxaridim we did not buy
xarid (he) bought mixarid (he) was buying
naxaridam I did not buy mixaridid you (pl.) were buying

How would you say the following things?

  1. They were buying.




  2. You (sing.) did not buy.




  3. We were not buying.




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