Inflectional rules
Inflectional rules are used to generate the inflected forms out of the base form. They differ from inflectional paradigms in the sense that they are specific to particular words (i.e., they are used to generated only irregular forms),
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When to use inflectional rules
Inflectional rules should be used when the inflectional behaviour of a word is too specific (i.e., irregular).
When not to use inflectional rules
Inflectional rules should be avoided whenever there can be stated a regular pattern for inflecting words. In this case, the inflectional behaviour should be described by an inflectional paradigm.
Examples
| Rule | Description | Case |
| PLR:="men"; | Replace the whole word by "men" | man > men |
| PLR:="mice"; | Replace the whole word by "mice" | mouse > mice |
| PLR:="feet"; | Replace the whole word by "feet" | foot > feet |
| PLR:="children"; | Replace the whole word by "children" | child > children |
Syntax
Inflectional rules should comply with the A-rule formalism for writing morphological rules in the UNL framework.
Observation
Inflectional rules can be combined with inflectional paradigms in order to describe localized irregular behaviour.
