Chinese is not “inflectional,” but English is
by Alistair
In many Indo-European languages, including English, the endings of words change to express different meanings (usually grammatical meanings). For example, the plural number in English nouns is usually expressed by adding the "-s" ending. Similarly, the past tense is expressed by adding the "-ed" ending to the ends of most English verbs.
In Linguistics, changing the endings of words in this manner is called "inflection," and a language that does this is called an "inflected" language.
(ⓘ “Inflected” languages are a subcategory of “synthetic” languages--languages that change their word forms to express different meanings. The opposite category to “synthetic” languages is called “analytic” languages--languages that do not change their word forms. Chinese is a typical example of an “analytic” language.)
An example of a highly inflected language would be Russian, where you must change the endings of almost all words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, numbers) in order to make a sentence grammatical.
English is also an inflected language; however, the number of word endings and word form changes in English has reduced over time to just a handful (such as "-s" for nouns, and "-ing" and "-ed" for verbs).
In contrast, Cantonese, just like other Chinese languages, is not an inflected language, and does not have inflection. None of the words in Cantonese change their endings in order to make the sentence grammatical. For example, there is no need to add an ending to nouns to express the plural, and there is no need to add an ending to verbs to express the past tense, etc.
This means that, when speaking or writing English, Cantonese speakers must pay special attention not only to adding word endings where necessary, but also to choosing the appropriate word endings for the particular meaning they are trying to express.
When an ending is added to a word to express a particular grammatical meaning, linguists call that form of the word the "marked" form, and the original word without the ending is “unmarked.”
For example, the word "work" is the unmarked form while the words "worked" (with the ending "-ed") and "working" (with the ending "-ing") are marked forms of the verb "work".
In English, since we use the ending "-s" to express the plural number and the ending "-ed" to express the past tense, we say that English marks the plural number and the past tense.
On the other hand, we say that Cantonese does not mark the plural number or the past tense since no special word endings are used to express those meanings--or any other meanings, for that matter, because Cantonese is never “inflected,” and its words do not ever change forms.
Although Cantonese is not “inflected” like English, it does use a different strategy to show certain grammatical information. Namely, it uses “particles”--that is, additional words--for this purpose. For example, “aspect” in Cantonese verbs is expressed with different particles: the “perfect aspect” (i.e. finished actions) with the particle “咗,” the “progressive aspect” (i.e. ongoing actions) with the particle “緊,” and the “habitual aspect” (i.e. actions that are habits) with the particle “開”:
我（已經）行咗呢條街。
我（而家）行緊呢條街。
我（平時）行開呢條街。
Cantonese uses these particles to show the “aspect” of verbs, but it does not have particles that show “tense.” Because of this, many people have the misconception that “Cantonese has no tense.” However, every language can express “tense.” It is just a matter of which grammatical strategy it uses. English, as we have seen, uses inflectional endings for this purpose.
How does Cantonese express the meanings of present, past and future actions then, if particles in Cantonese only express aspect and not tense?
In this case, context is the primary way of expressing tense in Cantonese. This can either be explicit by using time adverbs such as “今日”, “而家”, “出年”, or implicit based on the situation in which the sentence is spoken or written.
Of course, in English, we also use such time adverbs (e.g. "today", "now", "next year"); however, we must also mark a verb for tense with inflections in order to make a finite clause grammatical. This is something that Cantonese speakers will need to pay attention to when using English.
The important point to understand is that all languages can express the same set of infinite meanings. Different languages just do this differently. As we have seen in this article, English uses inflectional endings to express grammatical information including the tense and aspect of verbs and the plural number for nouns. Cantonese, on the other hand, is not inflected and uses particles to show certain grammatical information, such as the aspect of verbs.
Ultimately, both of these languages can express the same meanings with their different strategies.
As we try to illuminate with articles in our blog, we can learn foreign languages in a much more systematic and targeted manner if we could just step back and see language from a more scientific perspective with the help of simple Linguistics concepts.
If native Cantonese speakers learning English can grasp the simple Linguistics concept of “inflection” and know that English is “inflectional” while Cantonese is not, they can approach word markings and changing word forms in English with much more clarity.
中文不會變字形，但英文會
— Alistair
許多印歐系語言，包括英語，都會以轉變或加入字尾來表達不同的意思（通常是文法上的意思），好像英文在名詞加入字尾加「s」來顯示眾數，或在多數動詞字尾加「ed」來表達過去式等。
改變單字字尾，在語言學中稱為「inflection」（字面意思是「屈折」，即字形變化)；會出現這種字形變化的語言，我們稱為「inflectedlanguage」（屈折語）。英文便是一個「inflected language」的例子。
留意，「inflected language」本身是「synthetic language」（綜合語）這分類中中細分出來的類別。「synthetic languages」（綜合語）就是「會改變字形表達文法資訊的語言」的意思。「synthetic languages」（綜合語）的相反是「analytic language」（分析語），即「不會改變字形表達文法意思的語言」。中文語系的語言，包括廣東話，是「analytic language」的典型例子。
是「inflected language」的印歐系語言當中，俄羅斯文算得上是佼佼者，你幾乎要改變所有單字（包括名詞、動詞、形容詞、代名詞、數字）的字尾，才能令一句句子符合文法。
英文當然也是一種「inflected language」，不過它字尾和字形變化的數量隨著它的演變而遞減，現已變得屈指可數（例如名詞後加「-s」，動詞字尾加「-ing」和「-ed」等）。
相反，廣東話（和其他中文系語言）並非「inflected language」，甚至不能改變任何字形。沒有任何一個廣東話單字要轉換字尾來符合文法需要。所以我們不會看到中文名詞要加字尾來表現它是眾數，或者看到動詞因為要顯示過去式時態而加字尾等。
也因此，說廣東話的人士在進行英文會話或書寫時總要特別留神，不僅要考慮是否加字尾，還要小心選擇適當的字尾來表達所需意思。
那些在「inflected language」中被添加字尾來表達特定意思的單字字形，語言學家稱之為「標記了的」字形（marked forms)，沒加字尾的原始字形稱為「未標記」字形（unmarked forms)。
例如「work」本身是個「未標記字形」，而當加入字尾「-ed」變成「worked」，和加入字尾「-ing」變成「working」後，它們便成為動詞「work」的「標記字形」。
英文會用字尾「-s」來表達眾數，用字尾「-ed」來表達過去式，因此我們會說英文會標記眾數和過去式等的文法資訊。
廣東話（和其他中文系語言）則不是「inflected language」，所以任何情況下都不會需環加入特定的字尾去表達意思。
廣東話雖不像英文一樣屬於「inflected language」，但它自有一套顯示文法信息的方式，就是使用文法上的「助詞」（particles）－ 即加入額外的單字來進行標記。例如要標記動詞的「aspect」(體貌) 時，廣東話便會用上不同的「助詞」，像用「咗」這助詞來表示「完成式體貌」（已完成的動作）；用「緊」這助詞來表達「進行式體貌」（進行中的動作）；以及用「開」這助詞表達「習慣式體貌」（慣常會做的動作）:
我（已經）行咗呢條街。
我（而家）行緊呢條街。
我（平時）行開呢條街。
廣東話會使用「助詞」標記動詞來顯示「體貌」（aspect：動詞的狀態），但卻沒有「助詞」標記「時態」（tense），因此才令很多人誤解「廣東話並沒有tense」。事實上，任何一種語言都會表達「tense」，只是顯示的方式不同。就如英文會用改變字尾的方式來呈現時態，不過是這套語言所選用的策略而已。
廣東話的「助詞」只標記體貌不標記時態，那麼講者又如何能準確表達出某動作是發生於現在、過去、還是未來?
主要是倚靠前文後理去表達。我們可以直接利用時間副詞（例如「今日」、「而家」、「出年」），或透過該句子的整體語境來表達。
當然，英文也有時間副詞 （例如「today」、「now」、「next year」），但就算是加了這些，我們仍要標記動詞以使限定子句合乎英文文法。這是說不是「inflected language」的廣東話的人士在說英文時要特別注意的一點。
我們一定要明白，所有語言都可以表達出相同的含意，但不同語言的文法則會有不同特色。如本文中所述，英文會改變字尾來顯示各種文法信息，包括眾數名詞，以及動詞的時態和體貌。相反，廣東話不會改變字形，而是使用「助詞」來顯示體貌等文法信息。
最終，這兩種語言其實都以各自不同的方式來表達相同的含意。
我們希望以這些文章來告訴大家，假如可以退一步，並借助簡單的語言學概念，從科學的角度看待語言，我們定能以更有系統及針對性的方式學習外語。
只要母語為廣東話的人士明白「inflection」這個簡單的語言學概念，並知道英文屬於「inflected language」但廣東話不是，處理和學習英文中那些標記單字和轉變字形的情況時便能更加清晰了。