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<title>Fusional language</title>

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<span id="openzim-page-title" class="mw-page-title-main"><span class="mw-page-title-main">Fusional language</span></span>

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</style><table class="sidebar nomobile nowraplinks" style="width:auto"><tbody><tr><th class="sidebar-title"><a href="Linguistic_typology" title="Linguistic typology">Linguistic typology</a></th></tr><tr><th class="sidebar-heading" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #aaa;">

<a href="Morphological_typology" title="Morphological typology">Morphological</a></th></tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content" style="text-align: left;">

<ul><li><a href="Analytic_language" title="Analytic language">Analytic</a>

<ul><li><a href="Isolating_language" title="Isolating language">Isolating</a></li></ul></li>

<li><a href="Synthetic_language" title="Synthetic language">Synthetic</a>

<ul>

<li><a href="Agglutinative_language" title="Agglutinative language">Agglutinative</a></li>

<li><a href="Polysynthetic_language" title="Polysynthetic language">Polysynthetic</a></li>

<li><a href="Oligosynthetic_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Oligosynthetic language">Oligosynthetic</a></li></ul></li></ul></td>

</tr><tr><th class="sidebar-heading" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #aaa;">

<a href="Morphology_(linguistics)#Paradigms_and_morphosyntax" title="Morphology (linguistics)">Morphosyntactic</a></th></tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content" style="text-align: left;">

<ul><li><a href="Morphosyntactic_alignment" title="Morphosyntactic alignment">Alignment</a>

<ul><li><a href="Nominative%E2%80%93accusative_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Nominative–accusative language">Nominative–accusative</a>

<ul><li><a href="Marked_nominative_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Marked nominative language">Marked nominative</a></li></ul></li>

<li><a href="Ergative%E2%80%93absolutive_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Ergative–absolutive language">Ergative–absolutive</a></li>

<li><a href="Split_ergativity" title="Split ergativity">Split ergative</a></li>

<li><a href="Symmetrical_voice" title="Symmetrical voice">Symmetrical voice</a></li>

<li><a href="Active%E2%80%93stative_alignment" title="Active–stative alignment">Active–stative</a></li>

<li><a href="Tripartite_alignment" title="Tripartite alignment">Tripartite</a></li>

<li><a href="Nominative%E2%80%93absolutive_alignment" title="Nominative–absolutive alignment">Nominative–absolutive</a></li>

<li><a href="Direct%E2%80%93inverse_alignment" title="Direct–inverse alignment">Direct-inverse</a></li>

<li><a href="Ditransitive_verb#Ditransitive.2Fmonotransitive_alignment" title="Ditransitive verb">Ditransitive/Monotransitive</a>

<ul><li><a href="Secundative_language" title="Secundative language">Secundative</a></li>

<li><a href="Indirective_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Indirective language">Indirective</a></li></ul></li></ul></li>

<li><a href="Zero-marking_language" title="Zero-marking language">Zero-marking </a></li>

<li><a href="Dependent-marking_language" title="Dependent-marking language">Dependent-marking</a></li>

<li><a href="Double-marking_language" title="Double-marking language">Double-marking</a></li>

<li><a href="Head-marking_language" title="Head-marking language">Head-marking</a></li>

<li><a href="Null-subject_language" title="Null-subject language">Null-subject</a></li>

<li><a href="Syntactic_pivot" title="Syntactic pivot">Syntactic pivot</a></li>

<li><a href="Theta_role" title="Theta role">Theta role</a></li></ul></td>

</tr><tr><th class="sidebar-heading" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #aaa;">

<a href="Word_order" title="Word order">Word order</a></th></tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content" style="text-align: left;">

<ul><li><a href="Verb%E2%80%93object_word_order" title="Verb–object word order">VO languages</a>

<ul><li><a href="Subject%E2%80%93verb%E2%80%93object_word_order" title="Subject–verb–object word order">Subject–verb–object</a></li>

<li><a href="Verb%E2%80%93subject%E2%80%93object_word_order" title="Verb–subject–object word order">Verb–subject–object</a></li>

<li><a href="Verb%E2%80%93object%E2%80%93subject_word_order" title="Verb–object–subject word order">Verb–object–subject</a></li></ul></li>

<li><a href="Object%E2%80%93verb_word_order" title="Object–verb word order">OV languages</a>

<ul><li><a href="Subject%E2%80%93object%E2%80%93verb_word_order" title="Subject–object–verb word order">Subject–object–verb</a></li>

<li><a href="Object%E2%80%93subject%E2%80%93verb_word_order" title="Object–subject–verb word order">Object–subject–verb</a></li>

<li><a href="Object%E2%80%93verb%E2%80%93subject_word_order" title="Object–verb–subject word order">Object–verb–subject</a></li></ul></li>

<li><a href="Verb-initial_word_order" title="Verb-initial word order">V1 word order</a></li>

<li><a href="V2_word_order" title="V2 word order">V2 word order</a></li>

<li><a href="Object%E2%80%93subject_word_order" title="Object–subject word order">OS word order</a></li>

<li><a href="Free_word_order" class="mw-redirect" title="Free word order">Free word order</a></li>

<li><a href="Time%E2%80%93manner%E2%80%93place" title="Time–manner–place">Time–manner–place</a></li>

<li>Place–manner–time</li></ul></td>

</tr><tr><th class="sidebar-heading" style="border-bottom: 1px solid #aaa;">

<a href="Lexicon" title="Lexicon">Lexicon</a></th></tr><tr><td class="sidebar-content" style="text-align: left;">

<ul><li><a href="Color_term" title="Color term">Color terms</a></li>

<li><a href="Numeral_(linguistics)" title="Numeral (linguistics)">Numerals</a></li></ul></td>

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<p><b>Fusional languages</b> or <b>inflected languages</b> are a type of <a href="Synthetic_language" title="Synthetic language">synthetic language</a>, distinguished from <a href="Agglutinative_language" title="Agglutinative language">agglutinative languages</a> by their tendency to use single <a href="Inflection" title="Inflection">inflectional</a> <a href="Morpheme" title="Morpheme">morphemes</a> to denote multiple <a href="Grammar" title="Grammar">grammatical</a>, <a href="Syntactic" class="mw-redirect" title="Syntactic">syntactic</a>, or <a href="Semantic" class="mw-redirect" title="Semantic">semantic</a> features.

</p><p>For example, the <a href="Spanish_language" title="Spanish language">Spanish</a> <a href="Verb" title="Verb">verb</a> <i>comer</i> ("to eat") has the <a href="Grammatical_person" title="Grammatical person">first-person</a> <a href="Grammatical_number" title="Grammatical number">singular</a> <a href="Preterite" title="Preterite">preterite</a> tense form <i>comí</i> ("I ate"); the single <a href="Suffix" title="Suffix">suffix</a> <i>-í</i> represents <i>both</i> the features of first-person singular <a href="Agreement_(linguistics)" title="Agreement (linguistics)">agreement</a> and preterite tense, instead of having a separate <a href="Affix" title="Affix">affix</a> for each feature.

</p><p>Another illustration of fusionality is the <a href="Latin_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Latin language">Latin</a> word <span title="Latin-language text"><i lang="la">bonus</i></span> ("good"). The ending <span title="Latin-language text"><i lang="la">-us</i></span> denotes masculine <a href="Grammatical_gender" title="Grammatical gender">gender</a>, <a href="Nominative_case" title="Nominative case">nominative case</a>, and singular <a href="Grammatical_number" title="Grammatical number">number</a>. Changing any one of these features requires replacing the suffix <span title="Latin-language text"><i lang="la">-us</i></span> with a different one. In the form <span title="Latin-language text"><i lang="la">bonum</i></span>, the ending <span title="Latin-language text"><i lang="la">-um</i></span> denotes masculine <a href="Accusative_case" title="Accusative case">accusative</a> singular, neuter accusative singular, or neuter nominative singular.

</p>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Indo-European_languages">Indo-European languages</h2></div>

<p>Many <a href="Indo-European_languages" title="Indo-European languages">Indo-European languages</a> feature fusional morphology, including:

</p>

<ul><li><a href="Balto-Slavic_languages" title="Balto-Slavic languages">Balto-Slavic languages</a>, e.g. <a href="Polish_language" title="Polish language">Polish</a>, <a href="Russian_language" title="Russian language">Russian</a>, <a href="Ukrainian_language" title="Ukrainian language">Ukrainian</a>, and the <a href="South_Slavic_languages" title="South Slavic languages">South Slavic languages</a> (with the exception of <a href="Bulgarian_language" title="Bulgarian language">Bulgarian</a> and <a href="Macedonian_language" title="Macedonian language">Macedonian</a>, which are partially <a href="Analytic_language" title="Analytic language">analytic</a>)</li>

<li><a href="Indo-Iranian_languages" title="Indo-Iranian languages">Indo-Iranian languages</a>, e.g. <a href="Sanskrit" title="Sanskrit">Sanskrit</a>, <a href="Bengali_language" title="Bengali language">Bengali</a>, <a href="Hindi" title="Hindi">Hindi</a>, <a href="Pashto_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Pashto language">Pashto</a>, <a href="Persian_language" title="Persian language">Persian</a>, <a href="Kashmiri_language" title="Kashmiri language">Kashmiri</a>, <a href="Urdu" title="Urdu">Urdu</a>, <a href="Punjabi_language" title="Punjabi language">Punjabi</a></li>

<li><a href="Latin" title="Latin">Latin</a> and the <a href="Romance_languages" title="Romance languages">Romance languages</a>, e.g. <a href="Italian_language" title="Italian language">Italian</a>, <a href="French_language" title="French language">French</a> (partially analytic<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>), <a href="Spanish_language" title="Spanish language">Spanish</a>, <a href="Portuguese_language" title="Portuguese language">Portuguese</a>, and <a href="Romanian_language" title="Romanian language">Romanian</a></li>

<li><a href="Celtic_languages" title="Celtic languages">Celtic languages</a>, e.g. <a href="Irish_language" title="Irish language">Irish</a> and <a href="Welsh_language" title="Welsh language">Welsh</a></li>

<li>Some <a href="Germanic_languages" title="Germanic languages">Germanic languages</a>, e.g. <a href="German_language" title="German language">German</a>, <a href="Old_English" title="Old English">Old English</a>, <a href="Faroese_language" title="Faroese language">Faroese</a>, and <a href="Icelandic_language" title="Icelandic language">Icelandic</a></li>

<li><a href="Greek_language" title="Greek language">Greek</a> (Classical and Modern) and <a href="Albanian_language" title="Albanian language">Albanian</a></li></ul>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Semitic_languages">Semitic languages</h2></div>

<p>Another notable group of fusional languages is the <a href="Semitic_languages" title="Semitic languages">Semitic languages</a>, including <a href="Hebrew" class="mw-redirect" title="Hebrew">Hebrew</a>, <a href="Arabic" title="Arabic">Arabic</a>, and <a href="Amharic" title="Amharic">Amharic</a>. These also often involve <a href="Nonconcatenative_morphology" title="Nonconcatenative morphology">nonconcatenative morphology</a>, in which a word root is often placed into templates denoting its function in a sentence. Arabic is especially notable for this, with the common example being the root <i><a href="K-t-b" class="mw-redirect" title="K-t-b">k-t-b</a></i> being placed into multiple different patterns.

</p>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Caucasian_languages">Caucasian languages</h2></div>

<p><a href="Northeast_Caucasian_languages" title="Northeast Caucasian languages">Northeast Caucasian languages</a> are weakly fusional.

</p>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Uralic_languages">Uralic languages</h2></div>

<p>A limited degree of fusion is also found in many <a href="Uralic_languages" title="Uralic languages">Uralic languages</a>, like <a href="Hungarian_language" title="Hungarian language">Hungarian</a>, <a href="Estonian_language" title="Estonian language">Estonian</a>, <a href="Finnish_language" title="Finnish language">Finnish</a>, and the <a href="Sami_languages" class="mw-redirect" title="Sami languages">Sami languages</a>, such as <a href="Skolt_Sami_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Skolt Sami language">Skolt Sami</a>, as they are primarily <a href="Agglutinative_language" title="Agglutinative language">agglutinative</a>.

</p>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Outside_Eurasia">Outside Eurasia</h2></div>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Americas">Americas</h3></div>

<p>Unusual for a Native North American language, <a href="Navajo_language" title="Navajo language">Navajo</a> is sometimes described as fusional because of its complex and inseparable verb morphology.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

</p><p>Some <a href="Amazonian_languages" title="Amazonian languages">Amazonian languages</a> such as <a href="Ayoreo_language" title="Ayoreo language">Ayoreo</a> have fusional morphology.<sup id="cite_ref-lang_4-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-lang-4"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>4<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

</p><p>The <a href="Fuegian_languages" title="Fuegian languages">Fuegian</a> language <a href="Selk%CA%BCnam_language" title="Selkʼnam language">Selkʼnam</a> has fusional elements. For example, both <a href="Evidentiality" title="Evidentiality">evidentiality</a> and <a href="Agreement_(linguistics)#gender" title="Agreement (linguistics)">gender agreement</a> are coded with a single suffix on the verb:<sup id="cite_ref-RojasBerscia2014_5-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-RojasBerscia2014-5"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>5<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

</p>

<p>CERT:certainty (evidential):evidentiality

</p>

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</style><div class="interlinear" style="margin-left:2em"><div style="float: left; margin-bottom: 0.3em;margin-right: 1em;"><p lang="ona" style="margin: 0px;font-style: italic;">Ya</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><abbr class="gloss-abbr" title="first person, plural" style="font-variant: small-caps; font-variant-numeric: lining-nums; text-transform: lowercase;">1P</abbr></p></div><div style="float: left; margin-bottom: 0.3em;margin-right: 1em;"><p lang="ona" style="margin: 0px;font-style: italic;">k-tįmi</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><abbr class="gloss-abbr" title="relative(izer)" style="font-variant: small-caps; font-variant-numeric: lining-nums; text-transform: lowercase;"><a href="Relativizer" title="Relativizer">REL</a></abbr>-land</p></div><div style="float: left; margin-bottom: 0.3em;margin-right: 1em;"><p lang="ona" style="margin: 0px;font-style: italic;">x-įnn</p><p style="margin: 0px;">go-<abbr class="gloss-abbr" title="certainty (evidential)" style="font-variant: small-caps; font-variant-numeric: lining-nums; text-transform: lowercase;"><a href="Evidentiality" title="Evidentiality">CERT</a></abbr>.<abbr class="gloss-abbr" title="masculine gender" style="font-variant: small-caps; font-variant-numeric: lining-nums; text-transform: lowercase;"><a href="Masculine_gender" class="mw-redirect" title="Masculine gender">MASC</a></abbr></p></div><div style="float: left; margin-bottom: 0.3em;margin-right: 1em;"><p lang="ona" style="margin: 0px;font-style: italic;">nį-y</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><abbr class="gloss-abbr" title="present tense" style="font-variant: small-caps; font-variant-numeric: lining-nums; text-transform: lowercase;"><a href="Present_tense" title="Present tense">PRES</a></abbr>-<abbr class="gloss-abbr" title="masculine gender" style="font-variant: small-caps; font-variant-numeric: lining-nums; text-transform: lowercase;"><a href="Masculine_gender" class="mw-redirect" title="Masculine gender">MASC</a></abbr></p></div><div style="float: left; margin-bottom: 0.3em;margin-right: 1em;"><p lang="ona" style="margin: 0px;font-style: italic;">ya.</p><p style="margin: 0px;"><abbr class="gloss-abbr" title="first person, plural" style="font-variant: small-caps; font-variant-numeric: lining-nums; text-transform: lowercase;">1P</abbr></p></div><p style="display: none;">Ya k-tįmi x-įnn nį-y ya.</p><p style="display: none;">1P REL-land go-CERT.MASC PRES-MASC 1P</p><p style="clear: left;">'I go to my land.'</p><div style="clear: left; display: block;"></div>

</div>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Africa">Africa</h3></div>

<p>Some <a href="Nilo-Saharan" class="mw-redirect" title="Nilo-Saharan">Nilo-Saharan</a> languages such as <a href="Lugbara_language" title="Lugbara language">Lugbara</a> are also considered fusional.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-6"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>6<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

</p>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Loss_of_fusionality">Loss of fusionality</h2></div>

<p>Fusional languages generally tend to lose their inflection over the centuries, some much more quickly than others.<sup id="cite_ref-unfolding_7-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-unfolding-7"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>7<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> <a href="Proto-Indo-European" class="mw-redirect" title="Proto-Indo-European">Proto-Indo-European</a> was fusional, but some of its descendants have shifted to a more <a href="Analytic_language" title="Analytic language">analytic</a> structure such as <a href="Modern_English" title="Modern English">Modern English</a>, <a href="Danish_language" title="Danish language">Danish</a> and <a href="Afrikaans" title="Afrikaans">Afrikaans</a> or to <a href="Agglutinative_language" title="Agglutinative language">agglutinative</a> such as <a href="Persian_language" title="Persian language">Persian</a> and <a href="Armenian_language" title="Armenian language">Armenian</a>.

</p><p>Other descendants remain fusional, including <a href="Sanskrit" title="Sanskrit">Sanskrit</a>, <a href="Ancient_Greek_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Ancient Greek language">Ancient Greek</a>, <a href="Lithuanian_language" title="Lithuanian language">Lithuanian</a>, <a href="Latvian_language" title="Latvian language">Latvian</a>, <a href="Slavic_languages" title="Slavic languages">Slavic languages</a>, as well as <a href="Latin" title="Latin">Latin</a> and the <a href="Romance_languages" title="Romance languages">Romance languages</a> and certain <a href="Germanic_languages" title="Germanic languages">Germanic languages</a>.

</p>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Gain_of_fusionality">Gain of fusionality</h2></div>

<p>Some languages shift over time from agglutinative to fusional.

</p><p>For example, most <a href="Uralic_languages" title="Uralic languages">Uralic languages</a> are predominantly agglutinative, but <a href="Estonian_language" title="Estonian language">Estonian</a> is markedly evolving in the direction of a fusional language. On the other hand, <a href="Finnish_language" title="Finnish language">Finnish</a>, its close relative, exhibits fewer fusional traits and thereby has stayed closer to the mainstream Uralic type. However, <a href="S%C3%A1mi_languages" title="Sámi languages">Sámi languages</a>, while also part of the Uralic family, have gained more fusionality than Finnish and Estonian since they involve <a href="Consonant_gradation" title="Consonant gradation">consonant gradation</a> but also vowel <a href="Apophony" title="Apophony">apophony</a>.

</p>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Fusional_inflections">Fusional inflections</h2></div>

<p>Inflections in fusional languages tend to fall in two patterns, based on which part of speech they modify: <a href="Declension" title="Declension">declensions</a> for nouns and adjectives, and <a href="Grammatical_conjugation" title="Grammatical conjugation">conjugations</a> for verbs.

</p>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Declension">Declension</h3></div>

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</style><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">Main article: <a href="Declension" title="Declension">Declension</a></div>

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<p>One feature of many fusional languages is their systems of <a href="Declension" title="Declension">declensions</a> in which nouns and adjectives have an affix attached to them that specifies <a href="Grammatical_case" title="Grammatical case">grammatical case</a> (their uses in the clause), <a href="Number_(grammar)" class="mw-redirect" title="Number (grammar)">number</a> and <a href="Grammatical_gender" title="Grammatical gender">grammatical gender</a>. Pronouns may also alter their forms entirely to encode that information.

</p><p>Within a fusional language, there are usually more than one declension; <a href="Latin" title="Latin">Latin</a> and <a href="Greek_language" title="Greek language">Greek</a> have five, and the <a href="Slavic_languages" title="Slavic languages">Slavic languages</a> have anywhere between three and seven. <a href="German_language" title="German language">German</a> has multiple declensions based on the vowel or consonant ending the word, though they tend to be more unpredictable.

</p><p>However, many descendants of fusional languages tend to lose their case marking. In most <a href="Romance_languages" title="Romance languages">Romance</a> and <a href="Germanic_languages" title="Germanic languages">Germanic languages</a>, including Modern <a href="English_language" title="English language">English</a> (with the notable exceptions of German, Icelandic and Faroese), encoding for case is merely vestigial because it no longer encompasses nouns and adjectives but only pronouns.

</p><p>Compare the <a href="Italian_language" title="Italian language">Italian</a> <i>egli</i> (masculine singular <a href="Nominative" class="mw-redirect" title="Nominative">nominative</a>), <i>gli</i> (masculine singular <a href="Dative" class="mw-redirect" title="Dative">dative</a>, or indirect object), <i>lo</i> (masculine singular <a href="Accusative" class="mw-redirect" title="Accusative">accusative</a>) and <i>lui</i> (also masculine singular accusative but emphatic and <a href="Indirect_object" class="mw-redirect" title="Indirect object">indirect case</a> to be used with prepositions), corresponding to the single vestigial trio <i>he, him, his</i> in English.

</p>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Conjugation">Conjugation</h3></div>

<div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">Main article: <a href="Grammatical_conjugation" title="Grammatical conjugation">Grammatical conjugation</a></div>

<p><a href="Grammatical_conjugation" title="Grammatical conjugation">Conjugation</a> is the alteration of the form of a <a href="Verb" title="Verb">verb</a> to encode information about some or all of <a href="Grammatical_mood" title="Grammatical mood">grammatical mood</a>, <a href="Grammatical_voice" class="mw-redirect" title="Grammatical voice">voice</a>, <a href="Grammatical_tense" title="Grammatical tense">tense</a>, <a href="Grammatical_aspect" title="Grammatical aspect">aspect</a>, <a href="Grammatical_person" title="Grammatical person">person</a>, <a href="Grammatical_gender" title="Grammatical gender">grammatical gender</a> and <a href="Grammatical_number" title="Grammatical number">number</a>. In a fusional language, two or more of those pieces of information may be conveyed in a single morpheme, typically a suffix.

</p><p>For example, in <a href="French_language" title="French language">French</a>, the verbal suffix depends on the mood, tense and aspect of the verb, as well as on the person and number (but not the gender) of its subject. That gives rise to typically <a href="French_conjugation#First-group_verbs_(-er_verbs)" title="French conjugation">45 different single-word forms</a> of the verb, each of which conveys some or all of the following:

</p>

<ul><li><b>mood</b> (<a href="Indicative_mood" class="mw-redirect" title="Indicative mood">indicative</a>, <a href="Subjunctive_mood" title="Subjunctive mood">subjunctive</a>, <a href="Conditional_mood" title="Conditional mood">conditional</a> or <a href="Imperative_mood" title="Imperative mood">imperative</a>)</li>

<li><b>tense</b> (<a href="Past_tense" title="Past tense">past</a>, <a href="Present_tense" title="Present tense">present</a> or <a href="Future_tense" title="Future tense">future</a>)</li>

<li><b>aspect</b> (<a href="Perfective_aspect" title="Perfective aspect">perfective</a> or <a href="Imperfective_aspect" title="Imperfective aspect">imperfective</a>)</li>

<li><b>person</b> (first, second or third), and</li>

<li><b>number</b> (singular or plural).</li></ul>

<p>Changing any one of those pieces of information without changing the others requires the use of a different suffix, the key characteristic of fusionality.

</p><p>English has two examples of conjugational fusion. The verbal suffix <i>-s</i> indicates a combination of present tense with both third-person and singularity of the associated subject, and the verbal suffix <i>-ed</i> used in a verb with no auxiliary verb conveys both <a href="Progressive_aspect" class="mw-redirect" title="Progressive aspect">non-progressive aspect</a> and past tense.

</p>

<ul><li><a href="Inflection" title="Inflection">Inflection</a></li>

<li><a href="Synthetic_language" title="Synthetic language">Synthetic language</a></li></ul>

<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2></div>

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</style><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://people.umass.edu/sharris/in/gram/GrammarBook/GramCases.html">"Grammar: Cases"</a>. <i>people.umass.edu</i><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">2025-06-13</span></span>.</cite></span>

</li>

<li id="cite_note-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-2">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFSloane2001" class="citation book cs1">Sloane, Thomas O. (2001). <i>Encyclopedia of Rhetoric</i>. <a href="Oxford_University" class="mw-redirect" title="Oxford University">Oxford University</a> Press. p. 442. <a href="ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <bdi>978-0-195-12595-5</bdi>.</cite></span>

</li>

<li id="cite_note-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-3">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFMithun2001" class="citation book cs1">Mithun, Marianne (2001). <i>The Languages of Native North America</i>. <a href="Cambridge_University" class="mw-redirect" title="Cambridge University">Cambridge University</a> Press. p. 323. <a href="ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <bdi>978-0-521-29875-9</bdi>.</cite></span>

</li>

<li id="cite_note-lang-4"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-lang_4-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Bertinetto, Pier Marco 2009. <i>Ayoreo (Zamuco). A grammatical sketch</i>. Quaderni del Laboratorio di Linguistica della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. 8 n.s. <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://linguistica.sns.it/QLL/QLL09.htm">[1]</a></span>

</li>

<li id="cite_note-RojasBerscia2014-5"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-RojasBerscia2014_5-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFRojas-Berscia2014" class="citation book cs1">Rojas-Berscia, Luis Miguel (2014). <i>A Heritage Reference Grammar of Selkʼnam</i>. Nijmegen: Radboud University.</cite></span>

</li>

<li id="cite_note-6"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-6">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://wals.info/chapter/20">"WALS Online - Chapter Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives"</a>.</cite></span>

</li>

<li id="cite_note-unfolding-7"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-unfolding_7-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFDeutscher2006" class="citation book cs1"><a href="Guy_Deutscher_(linguist)" title="Guy Deutscher (linguist)">Deutscher, Guy</a> (2006). <i>The unfolding of language: an evolutionary tour of mankind's greatest invention</i> (reprint ed.). New York: Holt Paperbacks. <a href="ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <bdi>978-0-8050-8012-4</bdi>.</cite></span>

</li>

</ol></div></div></div><div><div class="zim-footer">

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