Konjugelse

Konjugelse, or conjugation, is the systematic inflection of verbs to express grammatical categories such as tense, aspect, mood, voice, person, and number. It governs how a verb changes form to agree with the subject and the context of a clause. The forms are usually organized into patterns or paradigms that describe the endings and stem changes a verb may take.

Verbs can be regular, following predictable endings, or irregular, deviating from standard rules. Some languages classify verbs into conjugation classes based on how their stems change when inflected, including vowel alternations or consonant changes. In addition to finite forms, many languages have nonfinite forms (infinitives, participles) that follow their own inflectional patterns.

Conjugation systems vary widely. Romance languages typically feature several conjugation groups defined by infinitive endings (for example -ar, -er, -ir) with distinct present, past, and subjunctive forms. Germanic languages often distinguish strong (stem-changing) and weak (regular) verbs, with unique past tenses and participles. Other languages rely more on auxiliary constructions or syntax to express tense and aspect, reflecting different degrees of morphologization.

Example in English: the verb walk. Present: I walk, you walk, he walks; past: walked; present participle: walking. In Norwegian Bokmål, the verb snakke shows similar agreement in present: jeg snakker, du snakker, han snakker; past: snakket; participle: snakket. These patterns illustrate how konjugelse underpins sentence structure, agreement, and temporal meaning across languages.