| Linguistic typology |
|---|
| Morphological |
| Morphosyntactic |
| Word order |
| Lexicon |
Asynthetic language is a language that is characterized by denotingsyntactic relationships between words viainflection oragglutination. Synthetic languages are statistically characterized by a higher morpheme-to-word ratio relative toanalytic languages.
Fusional languages favor inflection andagglutinative languages favor agglutination. Further divisions includepolysynthetic languages (most belonging to an agglutinative-polysynthetic subtype, althoughNavajo and otherAthabaskan languages are often classified as belonging to a fusional subtype) andoligosynthetic languages (only found inconstructed languages). In contrast, rule-wise, theanalytic languages rely more onauxiliary verbs andword order to denote syntactic relationship between words.
Addingmorphemes to a root word is used in inflection to convey a grammatical property of the word, such as denoting a subject or an object.[1] Combining two or more morphemes into one word is used inagglutinating languages, instead.[2] For example, the wordfast, if inflectionally combined with-er to form the wordfaster, remains an adjective, while the wordteach derivatively combined with-er to form the wordteacher ceases to be a verb. Some linguists consider relational morphology to be a type of derivational morphology, which may complicate the classification.[3]
Derivational and relational morphology represent opposite ends of a spectrum; that is, a single word in a given language may exhibit varying degrees of both of them simultaneously. Similarly, some words may have derivational morphology while others have relational morphology.
Inderivational synthesis, morphemes of different types (nouns,verbs,affixes, etc.) are joined to create new words. That is, in general, the morphemes being combined are more concrete units of meaning.[3] The morphemes being synthesized in the following examples either belong to a particular grammatical class – such asadjectives, nouns, orprepositions – or are affixes that usually have a single form and meaning:
supervision
-s-
council
-s-
members
assembly
Aufsicht -s-Rat -s-MitgliederVersammlung
supervision {} council {} members assembly
"The supervisory board's members' meeting"
pro par oxý tón -esis
pre {next to} sharp pitch/tone tendency
"Tendency to accent on theproparoxytone [third-to-last] position"
harbor
harbor DIM
"Public transportation stop [without facilities]" (i.e.bus stop,tram stop, orrail halt)—compare todworzec.
against
ending
to institute
advocate
ideology
anti-dis-establish-ment-arian-ism
against ending {to institute}NS advocate ideology
"the movement to prevent revoking the Church of England's status as the official church [of England, Ireland, and Wales]."
dosto primečátelʹn -ostʹ
deserving notableNS
"Place of interest"
navâz -ande -gi
{play music} -ingNS
"musicianship" or "playing a musical instrument"
на
na
direction/intent
вз
vz
adjective
до
do
approach
гін
hin
fast movement
на вз до гін
na vz do hin
{direction/intent} {adjective} {approach} {fast movement}
"after something or someone that is moving away"
high
cholesterol
blood
high cholesterol blood
the presence of high levels ofcholesterol in the blood.
Inrelational synthesis,root words are joined tobound morphemes to show grammatical function. In other words, it involves the combination of more abstract units of meaning than derivational synthesis.[3] In the following examples many of the morphemes are related tovoice (e.g. passive voice), whether a word is in thesubject orobject of the sentence,possession,plurality, or other abstract distinctions in a language:
communicate
communicate GER you.PL those.FEM.PL
"Communicating those[feminine plural] to you[plural]"
heavy-ADVR educate-PTCP.PRES.PASS
"difficultly-educatable" ("difficult to educate")
go
we
ourselves
from
go we ourselves from
"Let's get out of here"
together
crush
they
together crush they PASS
"They are crushed together"
mi sase rare gatai
see CAUS PASS difficult
"It's difficult to be shown [this]"
house
in
house POSS PL your.PL in
"In your houses"
Afyonkarahisar
citizen of
-laş
transform
-tır
notbe
(y)
(thematic)
able
we
among
Afyonkarahisar-lı -laş -tır-ama (y)-abil-ecek-ler-imiz-denmisiniz?
Afyonkarahisar {citizen of} transform PASS notbe (thematic) able FUT PL we among you-PL-FUT-Q
"Are you[plural/formal] amongst the ones whom we might not be able to make citizens ofAfyonkarahisar?"
gadmo
გვ-
gv
ა-
a
khtun
eb
-ინ
in
eb
-დ
d
-ნენ
nen
o
გადმო- გვ- ა-ხტუნ-ებ -ინ-ებ -დ -ნენ-ო
gadmo gv a khtun eb in eb d nen o
"They said that they would be forced by them [the others] to make someone to jump over in this direction." (The word describes the whole sentence that incorporates tense, subject, object, relation between them, direction of the action, conditional and causative markers etc.)
Agglutinating languages have a high rate of agglutination in their words and sentences, meaning that the morphological construction of words consists of distinct morphemes that usually carry a single unique meaning.[4] These morphemes tend to look the same no matter what word they are in, so it is easy to separate a word into its individual morphemes.[1] Morphemes may be bound (that is, they must be attached to a word to have meaning, like affixes) orfree (they can stand alone and still have meaning).
Fusional languages are similar to agglutinating languages in that they involve the combination of many distinct morphemes. However, morphemes in fusional languages are often assigned several different lexical meanings, and they tend to be fused together so that it is difficult to separate individual morphemes from one another.[1][5]
Polysynthetic languages are considered the most synthetic of the three types because they combine multiplestems as well as other morphemes into a single continuous word. These languages often turn nouns into verbs.[1] ManyNative Alaskan and other Native American languages are polysynthetic.
Oligosynthetic languages are a theoretical notion created byBenjamin Whorf. Such languages would be functionally synthetic, but make use of a very limited array of morphemes (perhaps just a few hundred). The concept of an oligosynthetic language type was proposed by Whorf to describe theNative American languageNahuatl, although he did not further pursue this idea.[6] Though no natural language uses this process, it has found its use in the world ofconstructed languages, inauxlangs such as Ygyde[7] andaUI.
Synthetic languages combine (synthesize) multiple concepts into each word.Analytic languages break up (analyze) concepts into separate words. These classifications comprise two ends of a spectrum along which different languages can be classified. The present-dayEnglish is seen as analytic, but it used to be fusional. Certain synthetic qualities (as in the inflection of verbs to showtense) were retained.
The distinction is, therefore, a matter of degree. The most analytic languages,isolating languages, consistently have one morpheme per word, while at the other extreme, in polysynthetic languages such as someNative American languages[8] a single inflected verb may contain as much information as an entire English sentence.
In order to demonstrate the nature of the isolating-analytic–synthetic–polysynthetic classification as a "continuum", some examples are shown below.
| Chinese text | 明天 | 我 | 的 | 朋友 | 会 | 为 | 我 | 做 | 生日 | 蛋糕 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transliteration | míngtiān | wǒ | de | péngyou | huì | wèi | wǒ | zuò | shēngrì | dàngāo | |
| Literal translation | dawn day | I | of | friend friend | will | for | I | make | birth day | egg cake | |
| Meaning | tomorrow | I | (genitive particle(='s)) | friend | will | for | I | make | birthday | cake | |
| "Tomorrow my friend(s) will make a birthday cake for me." | |||||||||||
However, with rare exceptions, each syllable in Mandarin (corresponding to a single written character) represents a morpheme with an identifiable meaning, even if many of such morphemes arebound. This gives rise to thecommon misconception that Chinese consists exclusively of "words of one syllable". As the sentence above illustrates, however, even simple Chinese words such asmíngtiān 'tomorrow' (míng "next" +tīan "day") andpéngyou 'friend' (a compound ofpéng andyǒu, both of which mean 'friend') are synthetic compound words.
The Chinese language of the classic works (ofConfucius for example) and southern dialects to a certain extent is more strictly monosyllabic: each character represents one word. The evolution of modern Mandarin Chinese was accompanied by a reduction in the total number of phonemes. Words which previously were phonetically distinct became homophones. Many disyllabic words in modern Mandarin are the result of joining two related words (such as péngyou, literally "friend-friend") in order to resolve the phonetic ambiguity. A similar process is observed in some English dialects. For instance, in theSouthern dialects of American English, it is not unusual for the short vowel sounds[ɪ] and[ɛ] to be indistinguishable beforenasal consonants: thus the words "pen" and "pin" arehomophones (seepin-pen merger). In these dialects, the ambiguity is often resolved by using the compounds "ink-pen" and "stick-pin", in order to clarify which "p*n" is being discussed.
| חשב/תי | ש/על/יו | ה/רעיון | על | של/י | ל/חבר/ים | סיפר/תי | אתמול |
| I thought | that about it | the idea | about | my | to friends | I told | Yesterday |
| Селото | селото | пустото | селото | откак | заселено |
| That village | that particular village | has always been empty | that village | ever since | it was settled |
The definite articles are not only suffixes but are also noun inflections expressing thought in a synthetic manner.
| أو | أعطيناكموه | عبثًا |
| aw | aʻṭay-nā-ku-mū-hu | ʻabath-an |
| Or | given - we had - [unto]you -it | futilely |
Haspelmath and Michaelis[9] observed that analyticity is increasing in a number of European languages. In theGerman example, the first phrase makes use of inflection, but the second phrase uses a preposition. The development of preposition suggests the moving from synthetic to analytic.
It has been argued that analytic grammatical structures are easier for adultslearning a foreign language. Consequently, a larger proportion of non-native speakers learning a language over the course of its historical development may lead to a simpler morphology, as the preferences of adult learners get passed on to second generation native speakers. This is especially noticeable in the grammar ofcreole languages. A 2010 paper inPLOS ONE suggests that evidence for this hypothesis can be seen in correlations between morphological complexity and factors such as the number of speakers of a language, geographic spread, and the degree of inter-linguistic contact.[10]
According toGhil'ad Zuckermann,Modern Hebrew (which he calls "Israeli") "is much more analytic, both with nouns and verbs", compared withClassical Hebrew (which he calls "Hebrew").[11]
