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Fusional language
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===Declension=== {{main article|Declension}} {{Expand section|date=May 2013}} One feature of many fusional languages is their systems of [[declension]]s in which nouns and adjectives have an affix attached to them that specifies [[grammatical case]] (their uses in the clause), [[number (grammar)|number]] and [[grammatical gender]]. Pronouns may also alter their forms entirely to encode that information. Within a fusional language, there are usually more than one declension; [[Latin]] and [[Greek language|Greek]] have five, and the [[Slavic languages]] have anywhere between three and seven. [[German language|German]] has multiple declensions based on the vowel or consonant ending the word, though they tend to be more unpredictable. However, many descendants of fusional languages tend to lose their case marking. In most [[Romance languages|Romance]] and [[Germanic languages]], including Modern [[English language|English]] (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. Compare the [[Italian language|Italian]] ''egli'' (masculine singular [[nominative]]), ''gli'' (masculine singular [[dative]], or indirect object), ''lo'' (masculine singular [[accusative]]) and ''lui'' (also masculine singular accusative but emphatic and [[indirect object|indirect case]] to be used with prepositions), corresponding to the single vestigial trio ''he, him, his'' in English.
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