What is "inflection"?

What is "inflection"?
Inflection is the change of a word's form according to the context. For instance, English verbs get the 's' ending in the third person singular; they get 'ed' in the past tense. Nouns get an 's' in plural. However, in English, inflection is an exception, rather than a rule.

As a rule, in Albanian and in other European languages, verbs, nouns, and adjectives change according to the context. This inflectional change usually involves changes of only the ending of a word.

In other words, the same word can have a different ending depending on the rest of the words that surround it. This is important because you need to use the appropriate endings when you speak Albanian; failure to do so may make communication in Albanian difficult or impossible.

Ironically enough, the word 'inflection' does not have an Albanian counterpart. The two Albanian terms used to describe inflection are 'zgjedhim' and 'lakim'. Inflection of verbs in English is called 'conjugation'; this corresponds to the Albanian zgjedhim. Inflection of nouns in English is called 'declension'; this corresponds to the Albanian lakim.