When you put something on the end of the root of the verb, e.g., third person 's' or 'ed' ending in past simple, this is called what?

• A. Inflection
• B. Mood
• C. Complement
• D. Semi modal verb

Answer: (A)

Inflection is the way a word's form is changed to show grammatical information like tense or person. When you attach endings to the verb, such as -s for third person singular present (he walks) or -ed to form the past tense (walked), you’re applying inflection. These endings modify the verb to convey who is performing the action and when it happened, rather than creating a new word with a different meaning.

Mood would involve forms that express attitude toward the action (like indicative or subjunctive), which isn’t what these endings signal here. A complement is a word or phrase that completes a sentence’s meaning, not a change to the verb’s form. Semi-modal verbs refer to certain auxiliary constructions and aren’t about standard verb endings marking tense or person.