Formböjningar

Formböjningar, or inflection, are the modifications of words that encode grammatical categories and relationships within sentences. They are a central feature of many languages and can affect different word classes, especially nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and verbs. Formböjningar are usually realized through affixes, vowels, or word-internal changes, and they can appear as endings or internal modifications.

Nouns and pronouns commonly inflect for number (singular/plural), and many languages additionally mark case or definiteness to show the syntactic function or definiteness. Adjectives inflect to agree with the noun they modify in number, gender, or case, and may have degrees of comparison. Verbs inflect for tense, aspect, mood, voice, person, and number, producing finite forms in clauses and non-finite forms in other contexts. Each complete set of related forms is called an inflectional paradigm.

Languages vary in how much they rely on formböjningar. Analytic or isolating languages use few or no inflections and rely more on word order and auxiliary words, while synthetic or fusional languages have extensive inflection patterns and large paradigms. Historical change can reduce or reshape forms, or create new ones, sometimes leading to irregular forms.

Examples vary by language. In Swedish, nouns take definite forms, and verbs change with tense values; in many Slavic languages nouns and adjectives show extensive case and gender agreement; in English, many inflections are simplified, though pronouns and verb forms still show person and tense.