Mississippi Foundations of Reading Practice Test

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What do we call words that change their form to indicate grammatical functions?

Compound words
Inflected words
Complex words
Root words

The correct answer is: Inflected words

Inflected words are those that undergo changes in form to indicate grammatical functions such as tense, mood, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, and case. This allows them to convey additional information beyond their base meaning. For example, changing the verb "walk" into "walked" shows a change in tense, indicating that the action occurred in the past. Inflection is a key aspect of many languages, including English, which helps to clarify the role that a word plays within a sentence. While compound words are formed by joining two or more words together to create new meanings, and complex words often involve a root and one or more affixes, these do not inherently indicate grammatical functions through their form. Root words serve as the base form of a word but do not themselves change to signify different grammatical aspects. Thus, the term that best describes words that modify form for grammatical purposes is inflected words.