bøyningsform

Bøyningsform is a term used in Norwegian linguistics to refer to a specific inflected form of a word. It denotes a concrete realization of a lemma (the dictionary form) that encodes grammatical information such as number, gender, definiteness, case, tense, mood, voice, or person. The concept helps distinguish the base form of a word from the various forms it can take in different contexts.

Languages differ in how many bøyningsformer they have and which features they mark. Some languages are highly inflected, with many forms for nouns, adjectives, and verbs; others are less inflected and use fewer distinct forms. In practice, a single lemma can have multiple bøyningsformer, each corresponding to a particular grammatical combination of features. Dictionaries and language resources often list these forms as part of a word’s morphological paradigm.

Noun forms (bøyningsformer) commonly reflect number (singular/plural), gender, and definiteness in many languages. Verb forms reflect tense, aspect, mood, voice, person, and number. Adjective forms may change to agree with the noun they modify in gender, number, and definiteness. Pronouns often exhibit case-based bøyningsformer. The exact patterns and endings vary between languages.

In linguistic description and language technology, bøyningsformer are analyzed to determine how a word changes and to parse sentences accurately. Dictionaries, grammars, and morphological analyzers use lists of bøyningsformer to map each form back to its lemma and grammatical features.