Polysynthetic language
A polysynthetic language structure (formerly also inkorporierender or einverleibender linguistic structure ) is in the morphological language typology, which goes back to Wilhelm von Humboldt and August Wilhelm Schlegel, the central feature of so-called polysynthetic languages. Polysynthesis found primarily in North and South American languages.
Definition and frequent grammatical properties polysynthetic languages
In polysynthetic languages a sentence or phrase is formed by a central lexical morpheme (usually the verb ) is combined with a variety of bound morphemes with morphosyntactic or semantic feature by affixation. Typically, polysynthetic languages , therefore, a large number of bound morphemes. In addition, many polysynthetic languages mark the key obligatory actants on the verb ( Polypersonalität ). Many, but not all languages also permit incorporation polysynthetic.
Several lexical and grammatical elements are combined into a complex word that can match a whole set of European languages in the extreme. A polysynthetic language is structurally a language with a very high degree of synthesis, that is, with a very high number of morphemes per word.
An example from the Athabaskan language Koyukon: (linguistics)
Kk'o - aɬts'eeyh -y- ee ' OYH Wind it around ( OBJECT ) imperfective move a compact object " The wind blows around it. " Nice to recognize the following aspects are polysynthetic languages: the Präpronominalpräfix kk'o " around " the mark of the patientive on the verb by the Pronominalpräfix y "it" ( object) and the incorporation of the noun form aɬts'eeyh "wind".
Origin of the term
The term ' polysynthetic ' was coined in 1819 by Peter S. Duponceau to describe American languages that combine a large number of " ideas " in a few words. He was introduced to the wider linguistic debate in 1836 in a posthumous work of Wilhelm von Humboldt. The terms synthetic and polysynthetic were first used as opposites in 1920 by Edward Sapir.
Polysynthesis and incorporation
The terms polysynthesis and incorporation are now often incorrectly used interchangeably. The confusion stems from the fact that Humboldt for the one phenomenon that is today called polysynthesis, the term einverleibend used, which was often translated as Incorporating into English. But incorporation today referred to another linguistic phenomenon which, although often found in polysyntethischen languages, but is by no means to identify with polysynthesis itself. There are also polysynthetic languages without the possibility of incorporation.
What languages are polysynthetic?
Polysynthesis is found mainly in North America. Except for the Penutian languages of California all indigenous North American languages are polysynthetic. Polysynthesis comes but also in other areas, for example in Siberia in the case of Chukch and niwchischen language. Another area with polysynthetic languages is the northwestern Caucasus, represented for example by the Abkhaz language.
Polysynthetic trains in other languages
So shows the French according to some linguists, with its strong phonetic merger of the individual words polysynthetic tendencies, especially in the spoken form. A phrase such as " je ne le sais pas" ( dt: " I do not know", literally " I do not know it Step " - " pas" is an old accusative of the scale for emphasis, as not even a single step ) is as a single word used, even if the individual components are written separately in written language. Here it is assumed that je sais ( dt: I know) a single form, that of the conjugated verb first -person singular is (so to speak as Personalpräfix ), and "the " no separate pronoun, so is not a free morpheme (which would indeed "moi "; "? Qui est jolie". cf. - * Je, properly would be moi ). . In this view, the verb would split incorporated (in " ever " and " sais " ), the particles "ne" and "le" in the verb and the "pas " is added at the end. Also reminds about a spoken ' one-word sentence ' [ salɥifʁapleziʁ ] ← " ça lui fera plaisir " ( this will make him pleasure / prepare ) to some Indian languages of North America from the polysynthetic type (see below ).
Due to the Liaison also the fusion of nominal strains is possible. So here polysynthesis more is possible than about the Germans because it only here - if at all - begin to work with pronouns: ( spoken) Siehstes, but * See web Espen Rochester? . ( The merger case illustrates what is good as a word to be taken in spoken )
Thus, these particles to paid employment Flexionsmorphemen would. Thus, one could refer to the French as " tend polysynthetischste " all Indo-European languages .
Egyptian Arabic
The Egyptian Arabic has developed (similar to the French ) partially polysynthetic tendencies compared to the standard Arabic:
Matgībulhahumš "Do not Bring it! "
- Ma .. š " not " ( together Miš than nominal negation ) of high- Arabic mā " what, not, no ," and Say ʾ " something that one thing "
- T (i) u ... 2nd person plural past tense marker (unmarked → jussive )
- L ( ī ) ha " you " 3rd person singular feminine Dat.
- Hum " they " 3rd person plural accusative
- Give Imperfektstamm of GAB bring (From a fusion of ga - "come", " go to someone " and bi - "with" originated )
Literally so:
" No - you shall give - her - she - thing " (where š as an independent word, as opposed to pas in French no longer exists in the Egyptian: " something that one thing " = HAGA )
Synthesis Index
Due to the word structure described above polysynthetic languages include distinguished in that they contain compared with other languages, especially long words. The property of word length is easy to measure, for example, in that it indicates how many morphs / morphemes up the words. If you compare the average word length of the languages fixed, you can compare them due to this criterion. From Greenberg synthesis index ( "degree of synthesis or large complexity of the word " ) was developed as S = M / W ( synthesis equal number of morphemes by the number of words in a text / text cut ). The following table gives the values of this index now for 31 languages , just as they were published by Silnitzky; the languages have been ordered so that the word length is continuously decreasing. At the top of the table so are the more polysynthetic, at its end, the analytical languages.
The polysynthetic language structure comes in this table, the Arab closest; an even much higher value is called Greenberg S = 3.72 for Eskimo. Maninka, an African language, is at the other end as a particularly analytical language; strongly analytically is English.
German also shows in this table does not have particularly high value, which would indicate a complex word structure. Here, the selection of the texts studied plays an important role: Horne is for Neuhochdeutsch S = 1:58 for the lyrics to, prose for S = 1.71. For three scientific texts Greenberg cites the values of the synthetic index of 1.90, 1.92 and 2.11, the latter value for a philosophical text. Depending on the style / type of text the synthesis value drops at least for the German so very different.