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Linguistics

Notes 23.2 The Inflectional Morphology of English

Let us discuss in detail in inflection morphology of English by describing paradigm of all regular
parts of speech.
Inflection Morphology of English Nouns: English nouns can be categorised into two major
categories–proper nouns, and common nouns. Proper nouns are those which have a unique identify
and common nouns are those which refer to a person, place, or a thing.
To understand inflectional morphology of noun, let us first examine two grammatical rules that
apply on English nouns:
1. The Number Rule: According to this rule, one can choose between singular and plural
references. If a noun is supposed to be singular, we can choose singular bound morpheme and
if it is supposed to be plural, we can choose Plural bound morpheme.
2. The Case-formation Rule: According to this rule one noun can be combined with other in
order to signify possession. In case we want to express that noun N2 belongs to N1, we can
choose bound morpheme Possession with N1.
These are the two rules which apply in the paradigm formation of English nouns. In the case of
proper noun only second rule is applicable because we do not have the choice of numbers in case
of proper nouns. But a proper noun can also be used in a plural form, only it is used as common
noun. This gives us two paradigm of proper noun.
• Common Case - Proper noun + COMMON, examples - Ram, Sam, etc
• Possessive Case - Proper noun Possessive, examples - Ram’s, Sam’s, etc.
Paradigm of Common Nouns: Common nouns can be categorised into ‘count’ nouns and
‘mass’nouns.
Count nouns are those which can be counted, thus count nouns, for example house, bikes, cars,
etc. and mass nouns are those which cannot be counted like love, peace, anger, etc. Paradigm of
count nouns involves both the rules state above . i.e. number and case rules. This can be made
clear with the clear with the following chart:

Rule I SINGULAR PLURAL
COUNT NOUN + SINGULAR COUNT NOUN + PLURAL
Cat + SINGULAR = ‘Cat’ Cat + PLURAL = ‘Cats’
Dog + SINGULAR = ‘Dog’ Dog + PLURAL = ‘Dogs’
Horse + SINGULAR = ‘Horse’ Horse + PLURAL = ‘Horses’
Rule II Common Case Possessive Case

COUNT NOUN + COMMON COUNT NOUN + POSSESSIVE
Cat + COMMON = ‘Cat’ Cat + POSSESSIVE = ‘Cat’s’
Dog + COMMON = ‘Dog’ Dog + POSSESSIVE = ‘Dogs’
Horse + COMMON = ‘Horse’ Horse + POSSESSIVE = ‘Horses’
= ‘Horse’s’
Plural Number + Common Case Plural Number + Possessive Case
Cat + PLU + COMMON = ‘Cats’ Cat + PLU + POSSESSIVE = ‘Cats’
Dog + PLU + COMMON = ‘Dogs’ Dog + PLU + POSSESSIVE = ‘Dogs’
Horse + PLU + COMMON = ‘Horses’ Horse + PLU + POSSESSIVE = ‘Horses’
Paradigm of Mass Noun : The mass nouns do not have nay plural inflection, as these nouns
cannot be counted. Mass nouns are, however, different from zero plural count nouns. Some count
nouns do have zero plural, but they can still be counted. Mass nouns do not have case inflection
either. Thus mass nouns do not have any paradigm form.

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