Polysynthetic - Definition and Overview

Polysynthetic languages are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes. The degree of synthesis refers to the morpheme-to-word ratio. Languages with more than one morpheme per word are synthetic. Polysynthetic languages lie at the extreme end of synthesis continuum with a very high number of morphemes per word (at the other extreme are isolating languages with only one word per morpheme).

These highly synthetic languages often have very long words that correspond to complete sentences in less synthetic languages.

A special case of polysynthesis involves incorporation where lexical morphemes (or lexemes) are combined together to form a single polysynthetic word. Not all polysynthetic languages are incorporating languages.

Agglutinating & Fusional languages

There are two main ways that words can be built up of many morphemes. Agglutinative languages build words by "gluing" morphemes together essentially unchanged. Fusional languages build words by "squishing" morphemes together, often changing the morphemes in the process. European languages tend to be fusional languages, while Native American languages tend to be highly agglutinative.

Examples

Chukchi

Examples of polysynthetic languages include Inuktitut, Mohawk, Classical Ainu, Central Siberian Yupik, Cherokee, Sora, Chukchi and numerous other languages of North America and Siberia.

An example from Chukchi, a polysynthetic, incorporating, and agglutinating language:

      Təmeyŋəlevtəpəγtərkən.
      tə-meyŋə-levtə-pəγt-ərkən
      1.SG.SUBJ-great-head-ache-IMP
      'I have a fierce headache.'   (Skorik 1961: 102)

Təmeyŋəlevtəpəγtərkən has a 5:1 morpheme-to-word ratio with 3 incorporated lexical morphemes (meyŋə 'great', levtə 'head', pəγt 'ache').

Classical Ainu

From Classical Ainu, another polysynthetic, incorporating, and agglutinating language:

The word aaejajkotujmasiramsujpa has a total of 9 morphemes with 2 lexical morphemes (tujma 'far', ram 'heart') incorporated into the verb.

Central Siberian Yupik

Languages with a high degree of synthesis but without being incorporating include Basque, Central Siberian Yupik, and Bantu languages.

An example from Central Siberian Yupik, a polysynthetic & agglutinating (but not incorporating) language:

      Angyaghllangyugtuq.
      angya-ghlla-ng-yug-tuq
      boat-AUG-acquire-DESID-3.SG
      'He wants to acquire a big boat.'

5:1 ratio and only one lexical morpheme (angya 'boat').

French

According to some linguists, spoken French can be classed as highly synthetic: a phrase such as je ne le sais pas is all one word, with the words that are separate in the standard written language becoming clitics or word inflections in the spoken language. It is structurally similar to a single Bantu word. If this is true, spoken French is thus far and away the most synthetic Indo-European language.

Problems

As a final note, 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 Apachean languages).

Origin of term

The terms synthetic and polysynthetic in this sense were first used by Edward Sapir in the 1920s.

References & Recommended Reading

• Duponceau, Peter S. (1819). Report of the Historical and Literary Committee. In Transactions of the American Philosophical Society (Vol. 1, pp. xvii-xlvi). Philadelphia: Abraham Small.
• Comrie, Bernard. (1989). Language universals and linguistic typology (2nd ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Humbolt, Wilhelm von. (1836). Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts. Berlin: Königliche Akadamie der Wissenschaften.
• Jacobson, Steven A. (1977). A grammatical sketch of Siberian Yupik Eskimo (pp. 2-3). Fairbanks: Alaska Native Languages Center, University of Alaska.
• Sapir, Edward. (1921). Language: An introduction to the study of speech (Chap. 6). New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
• Shibatani, Masayoshi. (1990). The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Shopen, Timothy. (1985). Language typology and syntactic description: Grammatical categories and the lexicon (Vol. 3). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Skorik, P. Ja. (1961). Grammatika čukotskogo jazyka: Fonetika i morfologija imennyx častej reči (Vol. 1, p. 102). Linguistic series 22. Camberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.