a. [f. prec. + -AL.] Of, pertaining to, or of the nature of flexion, esp. in Grammar; see FLEXION 4. Also, of a language: Possessed of, or based upon flexions. Cf. INFLEXIONAL.
1833. J. C. Hare, On English Preterites and Genitives, in Philolog. Museum, II. 256. The very same blindness to the meaning of a flexional termination, and the same notion that the s of the genitive ought to stand immediately before the noun by which it is governed, led us further, when two distinct nouns connected by a conjunction depend upon the same noun, to affix it only to the latter.
1861. Marsh, Eng. Lang., 347. An important advantage of a positional and auxiliary, over a flexional, syntax, is that the chances of grammatical error are diminished in about the same proportion as the number of forms is reduced.
1869. Farrar, Fam. Speech, iv. 119, note. The essential peculiarity of a flexional language is this, that for the purposes of declension and conjugation it makes use of formative elements so purely conventional and mechanical, that the nature of its construction is not even suspected by nine-tenths of those who use it.
1874. Sayce, Compar. Philol., iv. 156. The clear flectional growth of the verb shows only that it took place during the historic period, when the structure and tendency of the language were already inflectional, and that it was of later origin than the noun.
