TheCausesforthelossofInflectionandItsImpactuponthe

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TheCausesforthelossofInflectionandItsImpa ctupontheEnglishLanguage

作者：余佳

来源：《校园英语·中旬》2015年第06期

【Abstract】 As one of the linguistic phenomena，inflection has embodied strong brands of times，experiencing enormous change of which the trend is the loss of inflection.This thesis analyzed the reasons of the development trend of inflection from the internal and external factors，explaining the profound influences of the reduction of inflection on the English language which are both on the micro level and on the macro level.

【Key Words】 The loss of English inflections； Causes； Impacts on English

1.The Definition of Inflection

Inflection，broadly defined，is a modification （initial，internal，or final） in the form of a word to indicate distinctions of case，number，gender，person，tense，voice，mood，or some like grammatical aspect for the purpose of showing corresponding changes in its use and meaning.That is to say，inflection manifests grammatical relationship by means of attaching affixes which indicate the number，person，finiteness，etc.，while this addition would not influence or change the word-class of the original word.

2.The Development and the Trend of the Changing Inflection in the English Language

2.1 Three Periods of Inflection in the English Language

2.1.1 Full inflection in Old English （450--1150）

During most of this period，the different inflectional affixes of the noun，the adjective，the pronoun and the verb had been more or less preserved，and English had a distinctive feature of comprehensive language.

2.1.2 Leveled Inflection in Middle English （1150--1500）

The inflection began to break down at the end of the old English period.During the time of Middle English，most of the inflections had drastically reduced and gradually disappeared，and the comprehensive language came to change into analytic language.

2.2 The Trend of the Changing Inflection in the English Language