Editing Agglutination (section)

== Phonetics and agglutination ==

The one-to-one relationship between an affix and its grammatical function may be somewhat complicated by the phonological processes active in the given language. For example, the following two phonological phenomena appear in many of the [[Uralic languages|Uralic]] and [[Turkic languages|Turkic]] languages:

* ''[[consonant gradation]]'', meaning that there is alternation between certain pairs of consonant clusters such that one member of the pair appears at the beginning of an [[Open syllable#open syllable|open syllable]] and the other at the beginning of a [[Open syllable#open syllable|closed syllable]]; (in Uralic languages)
* consonant devoicing assimilation: similar but different process from above, assimilating devoicing of a stem-final unvoiced consonant; (in some Turkic languages)
* ''[[vowel harmony]]'', meaning that only specific subclasses of vowels coexist in a non-compounded word.

Several examples from [[Finnish language|Finnish]] will illustrate how these two rules and other phonological processes lead to diversions from the basic one-to-one relationship between morphs and their syntactic and semantic function. No phonological rule is applied in the declension of ''talo'' 'house'. However, the second example illustrates several kinds of phonological phenomena.<ref>The examples may be checked with the [http://www2.lingsoft.fi/cgi-bin/fintwol Finnish morphological analyser].</ref><ref>Note that there is no article in Finnish, so the use of a/the in English translations is arbitrary.</ref>

{|
|-
| ''talo'' <br>'house' || ''märkä paita'' <br>'a wet shirt' || the roots contain consonant clusters ''-rk-'' and ''-t-''
|-
| ''talo-n'' <br>'of the house' || ''märä-n paida-n''<br>'of a wet shirt' || consonant gradation: the genitive suffix ''-n'' closes the preceding syllable; <br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;      ''rk -> r, t->d''
|-
| ''talo-ssa'' <br>'in the house' || ''märä-ssä&nbsp;paida-ssa''<br>'in a wet shirt' || vowel harmony: a word containing ''ä'' may not contain the vowels ''a, o, u''; <br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an allomorph of the inessive ending ''-ssa/ssä'' is used
|-
| ''talo-i-ssa'' <br>'in the houses' || ''mär-i-ssä&nbsp;paido-i-ssa''<br>'in wet shirts' || phonological rules also imply different vowel changes when the plural marker ''-i-'' meets a stem-final vowel
|}