What is Morphology?, 3rd Edition

6 Inflection

• 6.1 What is Inflection?
  • 6.1.1 Exponence
  • 6.1.2 Inherent vs. assigned inflection
  • 6.1.3 Government vs. concord
  • 6.1.4 Inflectional categories
• 6.2 Inflection vs. Derivation
  • 6.2.1 Differences between inflection and derivation
  • 6.2.2 The similarity in form between inflection and derivation
• 6.3 Inventory of Inflectional Morphology Types
  • 6.3.1 Affixation and stem alternations
  • 6.3.2 Apophony
  • 6.3.3 Root-and-pattern morphology
  • 6.3.4 Reduplication
  • 6.3.5 Suppletion
• 6.4 Syncretism
• 6.5 Typology
• 6.6 Summary
• Agreement in Kujamaat Jóola
  • Definite article
  • Pronouns
  • Nominal modifiers
  • Subject–verb agreement
• Further Reading

What is the plural of euro, the name of the European currency? The answer seems obvious: euros – one euro, two euros, voilà! After all, -s is the productive plural marker in English and is normally used with new coinages, which is just what we do with words like twindemic or byte (twindemics, bytes). But spend a little time in Ireland, the only largely English-speaking country in the euro zone, and you will soon discover that a pint of Guinness in the local pub sets you back four euro and not four euros. Why?

The answer lies in the multilingual nature of the euro zone. The name of the currency itself bespeaks such multilingualism: its devisers had to come up with a name that could be both written and pronounced in all of the languages in the zone. Indeed, though it is pronounced differently in each of the languages ([ojro] in German, [œʁo] in French, and ...