words are used to form cases in nouns, and a variety of illustrations
might be given. These categories constitute conjugations and
declensions, and for convenience such combinations may be called
paradigmatic. Then the oft-repeated elements of paradigmatic
combinations are apt to become excessively worn and modified, so that
the primitive words or themes to which they are attached seem to be but
slightly changed by the addition. Under these circumstances combination
is called inflection.

As a morphologic process, no well-defined plane of demarkation between
these four methods of combination can be drawn, as one runs into
another; but, in general, words may be said to be juxtaposed when two
words being placed together the combination performs the function of a
new word, while in form the two words remain separate.

Words may be said to be compound when two or more words are combined
to form one, no change being made in either. Words maybe said to be
agglutinated when the elementary words are changed but slightly, _i.e._,
only to the extent that their original forms are not greatly obscured;
and words may be said to be inflected when in the combination the
oft-repeated element or formative part has been so changed that
its origin is obscured. These inflections are used chiefly in the
paradigmatic combinations.

In the preceding statement it has been assumed that there can be
recognized, in these combinations of inflection, a theme or root, as it
is sometimes called, and a formative element. The formative element is
used with a great many different words to define or qualify them; that
is, to indicate mode, tense, number, person, gender, etc., of verbs,
nouns, and other parts of speech.

When in a language juxtaposition is the chief method of combination,
there may also be distinguished two kinds of elements, in some sense
corresponding to themes and formative parts. The theme is a word the
meaning of which is determined by the formative word placed by it; that
is, the theme is a word having many radically different meanings; with
which meaning it is to be understood is determined only by the formative
word, which thus serves as its label. The ways in which the theme words
are thus labeled by the formative word are very curious, but the subject
cannot be entered into here.

When words are combined by compounding, the formative elements cannot
so readily be distinguished from the theme; nor for the purposes under
imm