Editing Analytic language

{{Short description|Language whose grammar rarely uses word inflection}}
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{{Too few opinions|date=January 2020}}
{{More citations needed|date=January 2020}}
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{{Linguistic typology topics}}

An '''analytic language''' is a type of [[natural language]] in which a series of root/stem words is accompanied by [[preposition]]s, [[postposition]]s, [[Grammatical particle|particles]] and [[modifier (linguistics)|modifiers]], using [[affixes]] very rarely. This is opposed to [[synthetic language]]s, which synthesize many concepts into a single word, using affixes regularly. 

[[Syntactic]] roles are assigned to words primarily by [[word order]]. For example, by changing the individual words in the [[Latin]] phrase "''fēl-is pisc-em cēpit''" ("the cat caught the fish") to "''fēl-em pisc-is cēpit''" ("the fish caught the cat"), the fish becomes the subject, while the cat becomes the object. This transformation is not possible in an analytic language without altering the word order. Typically, analytic languages have a low [[morpheme]]-per-[[word]] ratio, especially with respect to [[Morpheme#Inflectional morphemes|inflectional morpheme]]s. 

No natural language, however, is purely analytic or purely synthetic.

==Background==
The term ''analytic'' is commonly used in [[synthetic language#Synthetic and analytic languages|a relative rather than an absolute sense]]. The most prominent and widely used [[Indo-European]] analytic language is [[Modern English]], which has lost much of the [[inflectional morphology]] that it inherited from [[Proto-Indo-European]], [[Proto-Germanic]] and [[Old English]] over the centuries and has not gained any new inflectional morphemes in the meantime, which makes it more analytic than most other Indo-European languages.

For example, Proto-Indo-European had much more complex [[grammatical conjugation]], [[grammatical gender]]s, [[dual (grammatical number)|dual number]] and inflections for eight or nine [[Grammatical case|cases]] in its [[noun]]s, [[pronoun]]s, [[adjective]]s, [[numeral (linguistics)|numeral]]s, [[participle]]s, [[postposition]]s and [[determiner]]s. Standard English has lost nearly all of them (except for three modified cases for [[pronoun]]s) along with genders and dual number and simplified its conjugation.

[[Latin]], [[German language|German]], [[Greek language|Greek]], and [[Russian language|Russian]] and a majority of the [[Slavic languages]], characterized by free [[word order]], are [[synthetic languages]]. [[Russian grammar#Nouns|Nouns in Russian]] inflect for at least six cases, most of which descended from Proto-Indo-European cases, whose functions English translates by instead using other strategies like [[preposition]]s, [[Voice (grammar)|verbal voice]], word order, and [[English possessive|possessive ''{{'s}}'']].

[[Modern Hebrew]] is more analytic than [[Classical Hebrew]] mostly with nouns.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Zuckermann |first1=Ghil'ad |title=Hybridity versus Revivability: Multiple Causation, Forms and Patterns |journal=Journal of Language Contact |date=2009 |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=40–67 |doi=10.1163/000000009792497788 }}</ref> Classical Hebrew relies heavily on inflectional [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphology]] to convey [[Grammaticality|grammatical]] relationships, while in Modern Hebrew, there has been a significant reduction of the use of inflectional morphology.

==Isolating language==
A related concept is that of [[isolating language]]s, which are those with a low morpheme-per-word ratio (taking into account [[Morpheme#Derivational bound morphemes|derivational morpheme]]s as well). Purely isolating languages are by definition analytic and lack inflectional morphemes. However, the reverse is not necessarily true, and a language can have derivational morphemes but lack inflectional morphemes. For example, [[Mandarin Chinese]] has many [[compound word]]s,<ref>Li, Charles and Thompson, Sandra A., ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=F60wDwAAQBAJ&q=isolating+OR+analytic Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar]'', University of California Press, 1981, p. 46.</ref> which gives it a moderately high ratio of morphemes per word, but since it has almost no inflectional affixes at all to convey grammatical relationships, it is a very analytic language.

English is not totally analytic in its nouns since it uses inflections for number (e.g., "one day, three days; one boy, four boys") and possession ("The boy's ball" vis-à-vis "The boy has a ball"). Mandarin Chinese, by contrast, has no inflections on its nouns: compare {{lang|zh|一天}} {{Lang|zh-latn|yī tiān}} 'one day', {{lang|zh|三天}} {{Lang|zh-latn|sān tiān}} 'three days' (literally 'three day'); {{lang|zh|一個男孩}} {{Lang|zh-latn|yī ge nánhái}} 'one boy' (lit. 'one [entity of] male child'), {{lang|zh|四個男孩}} {{Lang|zh-latn|sì ge nánhái}} 'four boys' (lit. 'four [entity of] male child'). However, English is considered to be weakly inflected and comparatively more analytic than most other [[Indo-European languages]].

[[Persian language|Persian]] could be considered an analytic language. Generally, there are no inflections as we know it. There is a system of prefixes and suffixes that connect the words to express possession or attribute a quality. They could be integrated in the word in writing while they keep their function. For example, the suffix ها hâ makes the words plural like English s: دختر ها آمدند dokhtar hâ âmadand 'The girls came'. Persian has no agreement of a noun's or adjective's number or gender in many other languages because it is inherently a [[genderless language]]. Practically, there are no inflections for numbers keeping the above example; یک روز yek rooz 'one day', سه روز se rooz 'three days' (literally 'three day'), یک پسر yek pesar 'one boy' (lit. 'One boy'), چهار پسر čahâr pesar 'four boys' (lit. 'Four boy'). Similarly, there are no inflections for possession as well. A short '-e' sound (a diacritical mark) ـِ -e is added after a word starting with a consonants letter to show that it is possessed by (or belongs to) the next word so 'The boy's ball' would be توپِ پسر toop -e pesar. However, the diacritical mark 'ـِ' is put under the last letter of the first word for beginners and in written literature and everyday publications. It is otherwise usually omitted but pronounced in reading. For words ending with long vowels, the letter ی is added with a short '-e' sound written as یِ as a suffix. Thus, 'The boy's foot' would be پا یِ پسر pa -ye pesar. However, in literature and daily writing, the letter is omitted although it is pronounced in reading. The same system is used to connect adjectives and nouns to words.

== List of analytic languages ==
{{Dynamic list}}
{{More citations needed|section|date=April 2019}}

* [[Indo-European languages]]
** [[Germanic languages]]
*** [[Afrikaans]]<!-- Afrikaans sources copied from its article--><ref>{{cite book |last1=Holm |first1=John A. |title=Pidgins and Creoles: Volume 2, Reference Survey |date=1988 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-35940-5 |page=338 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1515/9783110888140 |page=72 |title=Pluricentric Languages |date=1991 |isbn=978-3-11-012855-0 |editor-last1=Clyne |editor-first1=Michael }}</ref>
***[[Dutch language|Dutch]] (partially)<ref>Danilevitch, Olga (2019), [https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2548/paper-02.pdf "Logical Semantics Approach for Data Modeling in XBRL Taxonomies"]</ref>
*** [[Danish language|Danish]]
*** [[English language|English]] (mostly)<ref name=":0">{{cite web |url=https://people.umass.edu/sharris/in/gram/GrammarBook/GramCases.html |title=Grammar: Cases |website=people.umass.edu |access-date=2018-04-19}}</ref>
*** [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]]
*** [[Swedish language|Swedish]]
** Others
*** [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]] (partially)<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bulgarian |url=https://clada-bg.eu/images/PDFs/Bulgarian.pdf |website=clada-bg.eu}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1016/B0-08-044854-2/01786-7 |quote=In the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries the Bulgarian language changed significantly, developing an analytic grammatical structure. |chapter=Bulgaria: Language Situation |title=Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics |date=2006 |last1=Angelov |first1=A.G. |pages=147–149 |isbn=978-0-08-044854-1 }}</ref>
*** [[French language|French]] (partially)<ref name=":0" />
*** [[Kalto language|Kalto]]
* [[Austronesian languages]]
** [[Hawaiian language|Hawaiian]]
** [[Māori language|Māori]]
* [[Sino-Tibetan languages]]
** [[Burmese language|Burmese]]
** [[Sinitic languages]] (including [[Mandarin Chinese|Mandarin]] and [[Cantonese]])
***[[Classical Chinese]]
* [[Austroasiatic languages]]
** [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]] 
** [[Khmer language|Khmer]]
* [[Kra-Dai languages]]
** [[Thai language|Thai]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Minegishi |first1=Makoto |title=Description of Thai as an isolating language |journal=Social Science Information |date=March 2011 |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=62–80 |doi=10.1177/0539018410389107 }}</ref>
** [[Lao language|Lao]] 
* [[Hmong-Mien language]]s
** [[Hmong language|Hmong]]
* [[Maybrat language|Maybrat]]
* [[Mixtec language|Mixtec]]
* [[Sango language|Sango]]
* [[Yoruba language|Yoruba]]
* [[Haitian Creole]]

==See also==
*[[Auxiliary verb]]
*[[Free morpheme]]
*[[Isolating language]]
*[[Zero-marking language]]
*[[Synthetic language]]
*[[Linguistic typology]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

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[[Category:Linguistic typology]]
[[Category:Analytic languages| ]]