Editing Grammatical conjugation (section)

{{Short description|Creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection}}
{{Distinguish|Conjunction (grammar)}}
[[File:Conjugation of verb-es.svg|thumb|270px|Part of the conjugation of the [[Spanish language|Spanish]] verb ''correr'', "to run", the lexeme is "corr-".<br /> Red represents the speaker, purple the [[Interlocutor (linguistics)|addressee]] (or speaker/hearer) and teal a third person.<br />One person represents the singular number and two, the plural number. <br />Dawn represents the past (specifically the [[preterite]]), noon the present and night the future.]]
{{Grammatical categories}}
In [[linguistics]], '''conjugation''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|k|ɒ|n|dʒ|ᵿ|ˈ|ɡ|eɪ|ʃ|ən}} {{respell|con|juug|AY|shən}}{{refn|{{Cite dictionary |url=http://www.lexico.com/definition/conjugation |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200322182042/https://www.lexico.com/definition/conjugation |url-status=dead |archive-date=2020-03-22 |title=conjugation |dictionary=[[Lexico]] UK English Dictionary |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}} }}{{refn|{{MerriamWebsterDictionary|access-date=2016-01-26|conjugation}}}}) is the creation of derived forms of a [[verb]] from its [[principal parts]] by [[inflection]] (alteration of form according to rules of [[grammar]]). For instance, the verb ''break'' can be conjugated to form the words ''break'', ''breaks'', and ''broke''.  While English has a relatively simple conjugation, other languages such as [[French language|French]] and [[Arabic]] or [[Spanish language|Spanish]] are more complex, with each verb having dozens of conjugated forms. Some languages such as [[Georgian language|Georgian]] and [[Basque language|Basque]] (some verbs only) have highly complex conjugation systems with hundreds of possible conjugations for every verb.

Verbs may inflect for [[grammatical category|grammatical categories]] such as [[grammatical person|person]], [[grammatical number|number]], [[grammatical gender|gender]], [[grammatical case|case]], [[grammatical tense|tense]], [[Grammatical aspect|aspect]], [[grammatical mood|mood]], [[grammatical voice|voice]], [[possession (linguistics)|possession]], [[definiteness]], [[politeness]], [[Causative|causativity]], [[clusivity]], [[interrogative]]s, [[Transitivity (grammar)|transitivity]], [[Valency (linguistics)|valency]], [[Affirmation and negation|polarity]], [[telicity]], [[Volition (linguistics)|volition]], [[mirativity]], [[evidentiality]], [[animacy]], associativity,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.grammaticalfeatures.net/features/associativity.html|title=Grammatical Features - Associativity|website=www.grammaticalfeatures.net|access-date=18 March 2018}}</ref> [[pluractionality]], and [[Reciprocal (grammar)|reciprocity]]. Verbs may also be affected by [[agreement (linguistics)|agreement]], [[polypersonal agreement]], [[Incorporation (linguistics)|incorporation]], [[noun class]], [[noun classifier]]s, and [[verb classifier]]s.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.academia.edu/10502997|title=Verb Classifiers - 'Misfits' of Nominal Classification?|first=Matthias|last=Passer|website=academia.edu|access-date=18 March 2018}}</ref> [[Agglutinative]] and [[polysynthetic language]]s tend to have the most complex conjugations, although some [[fusional language]]s such as [[Archi language|Archi]] can also have extremely complex conjugation.  Typically the principal parts are the [[root (linguistics)|root]] and/or several modifications of it ([[stem (linguistics)|stem]]s). All the different forms of the same verb constitute a [[lexeme]], and the canonical form of the verb that is conventionally used to represent that lexeme (as seen in dictionary entries) is called a [[lemma (morphology)|lemma]].

The term conjugation is applied only to the inflection of verbs, and not of other parts of speech (inflection of [[noun]]s and [[adjective]]s is known as [[declension]]){{citation needed|date=November 2022}}. Also it is generally restricted to denoting the formation of [[finite verb|finite forms]] of a verb – these may be referred to as ''conjugated forms'', as opposed to [[non-finite verb|non-finite forms]], such as an [[infinitive]], [[gerund]], or [[participle]] which respectively comprise their own grammatical categories{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}.

''Conjugation'' is also the traditional term for a group of verbs that share a similar conjugation pattern in a particular language (a ''verb class''). For example, [[Latin]] is said to have four conjugations of verbs. This means that any [[regular verb|regular]] Latin verb can be conjugated in any person, number, tense, mood, and voice by knowing which of the four conjugation groups it belongs to, and its principal parts. A verb that does not follow all of the standard conjugation patterns of the language is said to be an [[irregular verb]]. The system of all conjugated variants of a particular verb or class of verbs is called a '''verb paradigm'''; this may be presented in the form of a '''conjugation table'''.