Polysynthetic languages are highly
synthetic languageA synthetic language, in linguistic typology, is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio. This linguistic classification is largely independent of morpheme-usage classifications , although there is a common tendency for agglutinative languages to exhibit synthetic properties.-Synthetic and...
s, i.e., languages in which words are composed of many
morphemeIn morpheme-based morphology, a ' is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning.In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes .The concept morpheme differs from the concept word, as many morphemes...
s.
Not all languages can be easily classified as being completely polysynthetic. Morpheme and word boundaries are not always clear cut, and languages may be highly synthetic in one area but less synthetic in other areas (compare verbs and nouns in
Southern Athabaskan languagesSouthern Athabaskan is a subfamily of Athabaskan languages spoken primarily in the North American Southwest with two outliers in Oklahoma and Texas. These languages are spoken by various groups of Apache and Navajo peoples.Western Apaches call their language Nnee biyáti’ or Ndee biyáti’...
).
The degree of synthesis refers to the
morphemeIn morpheme-based morphology, a ' is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning.In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes .The concept morpheme differs from the concept word, as many morphemes...
-to-
wordA word is the smallest free form in a language, in contrast to a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning. A word may consist of only one morpheme , but a single morpheme may not be able to exist as a free form A word is the smallest free form (an item that may be uttered in isolation with...
ratio.
Polysynthetic languages are highly
synthetic languageA synthetic language, in linguistic typology, is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio. This linguistic classification is largely independent of morpheme-usage classifications , although there is a common tendency for agglutinative languages to exhibit synthetic properties.-Synthetic and...
s, i.e., languages in which words are composed of many
morphemeIn morpheme-based morphology, a ' is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning.In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes .The concept morpheme differs from the concept word, as many morphemes...
s.
Not all languages can be easily classified as being completely polysynthetic. Morpheme and word boundaries are not always clear cut, and languages may be highly synthetic in one area but less synthetic in other areas (compare verbs and nouns in
Southern Athabaskan languagesSouthern Athabaskan is a subfamily of Athabaskan languages spoken primarily in the North American Southwest with two outliers in Oklahoma and Texas. These languages are spoken by various groups of Apache and Navajo peoples.Western Apaches call their language Nnee biyáti’ or Ndee biyáti’...
).
Definition
The degree of synthesis refers to the
morphemeIn morpheme-based morphology, a ' is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning.In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes , and in written language morphemes are composed of graphemes .The concept morpheme differs from the concept word, as many morphemes...
-to-
wordA word is the smallest free form in a language, in contrast to a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning. A word may consist of only one morpheme , but a single morpheme may not be able to exist as a free form A word is the smallest free form (an item that may be uttered in isolation with...
ratio. Languages with more than one morpheme per word are synthetic. Polysynthetic languages lie at the extreme end of the synthesis continuum with a very high number of morphemes per word (at the other extreme are isolating or analytic languages with only one morpheme per word). These highly synthetic languages often have very long words that correspond to complete sentences in less synthetic languages.
Many, if not most, languages regarded as polysynthetic include agreement with object arguments as well as subject arguments in verbs.
IncorporationIncorporation is a phenomenon by which a word, usually a verb, forms a kind of compound with, for instance, its direct object or adverbial modifier, while retaining its original syntactic function....
(primarily noun incorporation) has been an issue that has historically been confused with polysynthesis and also used as a criterion for its definition. Incorporation refers to the phenomenon where lexical morphemes (or lexemes) are combined together to form a single word. Not all polysynthetic languages are incorporating, and not all incorporating languages are polysynthetic.
A contrast was made by some linguists between oligosynthetic and polysynthetic languages, where the former term was applied to languages with relatively few morphemes. The distinction is not widely used today.
Mark C. BakerMark C. Baker is an American linguist. He received his Ph. D. from MIT in 1985 and has taught at Rutgers since 1998. Prof. Baker has frequently been a faculty member at the Linguistic Society of America's Summer Institute and, prior to coming to Rutgers, was a faculty member at McGill University...
has tried to define polysynthesis as a syntactic macroparameter within
Noam ChomskyAvram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as...
's "
principles and parametersPrinciples and parameters is a framework in generative linguistics. Principles and parameters was largely formulated by the linguists Noam Chomsky and Howard Lasnik...
" programme. He defines polysynthetic languages as languages that conform to the syntactic rule that he calls the "polysynthesis parameter" and which as a result show a special set of morphological and syntactic properties. The polysynthesis parameter states that all phrasal heads must be marked with either agreement morphemes of their direct argument or else
incorporateIncorporation is a phenomenon by which a word, usually a verb, forms a kind of compound with, for instance, its direct object or adverbial modifier, while retaining its original syntactic function....
these arguments in that head. This definition of polysynthesis leaves out some languages that are commonly stated as examples of polysynthetic languages (such as Inuktitut), but can be seen to be the reason of certain common structural properties in others such as
MohawkMohawk is a Native American language spoken by the Mohawk nation in the United States and Canada. It is part of the Iroquoian family. In schools of northern New York particularly in Native American Reservations Native American Languages are taught depending on the tribe in the...
and
NahuatlNahuatl is a group of related languages and dialects of the Nahuan branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Collectively they are spoken by an estimated Nahua people, most of whom live in Central Mexico...
. Baker's definition, probably because of its heavy dependence on Chomskian theory, has not been accepted as a general definition of polysynthesis.
Origin of term
The term "polysynthesis" was probably first used in a linguistic sense by
Peter Stephen DuPonceauPeter Stephen Du Ponceau or DuPonceau, born Pierre-Étienne Du Ponceau, was a French linguist, philosopher, and jurist...
(a.k.a. Pierre Étienne Duponceau) in 1819 as a term to describe American languages:
Three principal results have forcibly struck my mind... They are the following:
- That the American languages in general are rich in grammatical forms, and that in their complicated construction, the greatest order, method and regularity prevail
- That these complicated forms, which I call polysynthesis, appear to exist in all those languages, from Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous constituent country within the Kingdom of Denmark located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago...
to Cape HornCape Horn island is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile....
.
- That these forms appear to differ essentially from those of the ancient and modern languages of the old hemisphere. (Duponceau 1819:xxii-xxiii)
The manner in which words are compounded in that particular mode of speech, the great number and variety of ideas which it has the power of expressing in one single word; particularly by means of the verbs; all these stamp its character for abundance, strength, and comprehensiveness of expression, in such a manner, that those accidents must be considered as included in the general descriptive term polysynthetic. (Duponceau 1819:xxvii)
I have explained elsewhere what I mean by a polysynthetic or syntactic construction of language.... It is that in which the greatest number of ideas are comprised in the least number of words. This is done principally in two ways. 1. By a mode of compounding locutions which is not confined to joining two words together, as in the Greek, or varying the inflection or termination of a radical word as in the most European languages, but by interweaving together the most significant sounds or syllables of each simple word, so as to form a compound that will awaken in the mind at once all the ideas singly expressed by the words from which they are taken. 2. By an analogous combination of various parts of speech, particularly by means of the verb, so that its various forms and inflections will express not only the principal action, but the greatest possible number of the moral ideas and physical objects connected with it, and will combine itself to the greatest extent with those conceptions which are the subject of other parts of speech, and in other languages require to be expressed by separate and distinct words.... Their most remarkable external appearance is that of long polysyllabic words, which being compounded in the manner I have stated, express much at once.(Duponceau 1819:xxx-xxxi)
The term was made popular in a posthumously published work by
Wilhelm von HumboldtFriedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Humboldt , government functionary, diplomat, philosopher, founder of Humboldt Universität in Berlin, friend of Goethe and in particular of Schiller, is especially remembered as a linguist who made important contributions to the philosophy of...
(1836).
The terms
synthetic and
polysynthetic were first used in the modern sense by
Edward SapirEdward Sapir , was a German-born American anthropologist-linguist and a leader in American structural linguistics. He was one of the creators of what is now called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis...
in the 1920s.
Affixally and compositionally polysynthetic languages
Recent linguistic work suggests that polysynthetic languages can be fundamentally divided into two categories, which differ in the way in which morphemes are organised to form words.
Affixal polysynthesis
Affixally polysynthetic languages, as the name suggests, are those which use only non-root-
bound morphemeIn morphology, a bound morpheme is a morpheme that cannot stand alone as an independent word while carrying the lexical meaning related to the one in the word it is taken from...
s to express concepts which in less synthetic languages are expressed by separate words such as
adjectiveIn grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent...
s and
adverbAn adverb is a part of speech. It is any word that modifies any other part of language, except for nouns: verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences and other adverbs. Modifiers of nouns are primarily determiners and adjectives....
s. They also use these bound morphemes to make other
nounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
s and
verbkalleah hit meIn syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice...
s from a basic root, which can lead to very complex word forms without non-lexical suffixes. These bound morphemes often relate to body parts, other essential items of the culture of the language's speakers or features of the landscape where the language is spoken. Deiectics and other spatial and temporal relations are also very common among these bound morphemes in affixally polysynthetic languages.
Affixally polysynthetic languages do not use noun incorporation or verb serialisation, since this would violate the rule concerning the number of roots allowable per word. Many have a weak distinction between nouns and verbs which allows affixes to be used to translate these parts of speech.
Affixally polysynthetic languages may have a word structure that is either:
- templatic, which means that there exists a fixed number of slots for different elements which are fixed in their position and order relative to each other.
- scope ordered, which means there exist forms not restricted in complexity and length. The components are fixed in their relative scope and are thus ordered according to the intended meaning. Usually in this case a few components are actually fixed, such as the root in Eskimo-Aleut languages
Eskimo-Aleut is a language family native to Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, Greenland, and the Chukchi Peninsula on the eastern tip of Siberia...
.
Examples of affixally polysynthetic languages include
InuktitutInuktitut is the name of some of the Inuit languages spoken in Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, to some extent in northeastern Manitoba as well as the territories of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories,...
,
CherokeeCherokee is an Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee people which uses a unique syllabary writing system. It is the only Southern Iroquoian language that remains spoken. Cherokee is polysynthetic.-Dialects:...
,
Athabaskan languagesAthabaskan or Athabascan is the name of a large group of closely related indigenous peoples of North America, located in two main Southern and Northern groups in western North America, and of their language family...
, the
Chimakuan languagesThe Chimakuan language family consists of two languages spoken in northwestern Washington, USA on the Olympic Peninsula. It is part of the Mosan sprachbund, and one of its languages is famous for having no nasal consonants...
(
QuileuteQuileute , also known as Quillayute , is the only surviving Chimakuan language, spoken by a few Quileute and Makah elders on the western coast of the Olympic peninsula south of Cape Flattery at La Push and the lower Hoh River...
) and the
Wakashan languagesWakashan is a family of languages spoken in British Columbia around and on Vancouver Island, and in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca....
.
Compositional polysynthesis
In compositionally polysynthetic languages, there usually can be more than one free morpheme per word, which gives rise to noun incorporation and verb serialisation to create extremely long words. Although they tend to be of much less importance than in affixally polysynthetic languages, compositionally polysynthetic languages tend to have as many of the bound affixes as purely affixal polysynthetic languages.
It is believed that all affixally polysynthetic languages evolved from compositionally polysynthetic ones via the conversion of morphemes that could stand on their own into affixes.
Because they possess a greater number of free morphemes, compositionally polysynthetic languages are much more prone than affixally polysynthetic ones to evolve into simpler languages with less complex words. On the other hand, they are generally easier to distinguish from non-polysynthetic languages than affixally polysynthetic languages.
Examples of compositionally polysynthetic languages include Classical
AinuAinu is an Ainu language spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō....
,
SoraSora is a Munda language of India, spoken by some 288,000 native speakers in South Orissa in eastern India, mainly in the Ganjam District, but also in the Koraput and Phulbani districts; other communities exist in Andhra Pradesh , Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and...
,
ChukchiThe Chukchi language also known as Luoravetlan, Chukot and Chukcha is a Palaeosiberian language spoken by Chukchi people in the easternmost extremity of Siberia, mainly in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug...
,
TonkawaThe Tonkawa language was spoken in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico by the Tonkawa people. A language isolate, with no known related languages, Tonkawa is now extinct. Members of the Tonkawa tribe now speak only English.-Vowels:Tonkawa has 10 vowels:...
, and most Amazonian languages.
Chukchi
An example from
ChukchiThe Chukchi language also known as Luoravetlan, Chukot and Chukcha is a Palaeosiberian language spoken by Chukchi people in the easternmost extremity of Siberia, mainly in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug...
, a polysynthetic, incorporating, and agglutinating language:
- 1.SG.SUBJ
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle. The other constituent is the predicate...
-great-head-hurt-PRESThe present tense is the tense that may be used to express:* action at the present* a state of being;* an occurrence in the near future; or* an action that occurred in the past and continues up to the present....
.1
- 'I have a fierce headache.' (Skorik 1961: 102)
has a 5:1 morpheme-to-word ratio with 3 incorporated lexical morphemes ( 'great', 'head', 'ache').
Classical Ainu
From
Classical AinuAinu is an Ainu language spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō....
, another polysynthetic, incorporating, and agglutinating language:
| Usaopuspe aejajkotujmasiramsujpa. |
| usa-opuspe |
a-e-jaj-ko-tujma-si-ram-suj-pa |
| various-rumors |
1-APL The applicative voice is a grammatical voice which promotes an oblique argument of a verb to the patient argument, and indicates the oblique role within the meaning of the verb. When the applicative voice is applied to a verb, its valency may be increased by one, and intransitive verbs may be...
-REFLIn grammar, a reflexive verb is a verb whose semantic agent and patient are the same. For example, the English verb to perjure is reflexive, since one can only perjure oneself...
-far-REFL-heart-sway-ITERIn linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb defines the temporal flow in the described event or state...
|
| 'I keep swaying my heart afar and toward myself over various rumors.' (i.e., I wonder about various rumors.) |
| (Shibatani 1990: 72) |
Distribution of polysynthetic languages
Polysynthetic languages have arisen in many places around the world. The list below gives some families that are stereotypically polysynthetic, although some members of the families may be less so than others.
Siberia
- Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages
The Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages are a language family of northeastern Siberia. The family is also known as Chukchi-Kamchatkan.Less commonly encountered names for this family are Chukchian, Chukotian, Chukotan, Kamchukchee and Kamchukotic...
- Ket
The Ket language, formerly known as Yenisei Ostyak, a Siberian language long thought to be an isolate, the sole surviving language of a Yeniseian language family, is spoken along the middle Yenisei basin by the Ket people....
("probable")
- Nivkh
Nivkh or Gilyak is a language spoken in Outer Manchuria, in the basin of the Amgun , along the lower reaches of the Amur itself, and on the northern half of Sakhalin. 'Gilyak' is the Manchu appellation...
(possible)
North America
- Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages languages are a subfamily of Native American languages that includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is itself...
- Caddoan languages
The Caddoan languages are a family of Native American languages. They are spoken by Native Americans throughout the Great Plains of the central United States, from North Dakota south to Oklahoma.-Family division:...
- Eskimo-Aleut languages
Eskimo-Aleut is a language family native to Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, Greenland, and the Chukchi Peninsula on the eastern tip of Siberia...
- Iroquoian languages
The Iroquoian languages are a First Nation and Native American language family. The language family, amongst others, includes Mohawk, Huron-Wyandot and Cherokee.Every language in this family has at least one nasal vowel phoneme...
- Nadene languages
- Salishan languages
The Salishan languages are a group of languages of the Pacific Northwest...
- Siouan languages
The Siouan languages are a Native American language family of North America, and the second largest indigenous language family in North America, after Algonquian. The Siouan family is related to the Catawban family, together making up the Siouan-Catawban family...
("mildly" polysynthetic)
- Wakashan languages
Wakashan is a family of languages spoken in British Columbia around and on Vancouver Island, and in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca....
- Yana
Yana is an extinct language isolate formerly spoken in north-central California between the Feather and Pit rivers in what is now Shasta and Tehama counties....
/YahiYahi is an extinct language formerly spoken in the upper Sacramento Valley area, roughly in the area between Mill Creek and Deer Creek. It is grouped with the Southern forms of the Yana languages which, together with Central and Northern Yana are an isolated group of...
and other Hokan languagesThe Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families spoken in California and Mexico. In nearly a century since Edward Sapir first proposed the "Hokan" hypothesis, little additional evidence has been found that these families were related to each other...
Central America
- Mayan languages
The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...
- Totonacan languages
The Totonacan Languages are a family of closely-related languages spoken by approximately 200,000 Totonac and Tepehua people in the states of Veracruz, Puebla, and Hidalgo in Mexico...
- Uto-Aztecan languages
Uto-Aztecan is a Native American language family. It is one of the largest and most well-established linguistic families of the Americas...
- Mixe-Zoquean languages
South America
- Aymaran languages
Aymaran is one of the two dominant language families of the central Andes, along with Quechuan....
- Quechuan languages
The neologism 'Quechuan' is synonymous with Quechua, the name of the most widely spoken Native American language family of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with a total of probably some 6 to 8 million speakers...
- Tupi-Guaraní languages
Guaraní, specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guaraní , is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí-Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by 88% of the population, with half of the...
- Many Amazonian languages
- Mapudungun
Mapudungun is a language isolate spoken in central Chile and west central Argentina by the Mapuche people. It is also known as Mapudungu, Mapuche, and Araucanian...
Oceania
- many Papuan languages
The term Papuan languages refers to those languages of the western Pacific which are neither Austronesian nor Australian. That is, the term is defined negatively and does not presuppose a genetic relationship...
(e.g. Awtuw, YimasThe Yimas Language is spoken by the Yimas people of Papua New Guinea. It is a polysynthetic language with free word order. It is an ergative-absolutive language morphologically but not syntactically, although it has several other case-like relations encoded on its verbs...
)
- northern Australian languages (e.g. Bininj Gun-wok, Gunwinyguan
The Gunwinyguan languages form the second largest family of Australian Aboriginal languages. They are spoken in Arnhem Land in northern Australia. The most populous language is Gunwinygu, with some 1500 speakers....
, Ngalakgan, Rembarrnga, TiwiTiwi is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken on the Tiwi Islands, within sight of the coast of northern Australia. It is one of about 10% of Australian languages still being learned by children....
)