Which statement about inflectional morphemes is correct?

• A. They always change word class.
• B. They attach only to verbs.
• C. They create new words by adding new meaning.
• D. They modify grammar without changing word class.

Answer: (D)

Inflectional morphemes encode grammar rather than meaning, and they don’t change a word’s class. They mark features like number, tense, person, mood, or comparison while leaving the base word in the same grammatical category. For example, adding -s to a noun (cat → cats) signals plural without turning it into a different part of speech. Attaching -ed to a verb (walk → walked) shows past tense and keeps it a verb. Likewise, forming the comparative for an adjective with -er (big → bigger) or the superlative with -est still leaves the word as an adjective. So this statement is the best description of inflectional morphemes: they modify grammar without changing word class.