In many languages, words or parts of words are arranged in formally similar sets consisting of a root, or base, and various affixes. Other examples of English inflectional suffixes are the verb tenses. Many languages have far more extensive inflection than English, e.g., Latin, Eskimo, Arabic. In Latin grammar the typical noun and adjective are inflected for case and number , and the adjective is additionally inflected for the gender of the noun.
Noun inflection is called declension, and the inflection of verbs is called conjugation.
To be distinguished from inflectional affixes are those of derivation. Derivation is the process of forming words from other words or roots by the addition of affixes that in themselves either have meaning or denote word function. Derivational affixes in English may be either prefixes-e.g. Beginning in the 19th cent. An isolating language is one in which there are only roots, with no derivation or inflection, such as Chinese.