Editing Morphological typology

{{Short description|Way of classifying the world's languages}}
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{{Linguistic typology topics}}

'''Morphological typology''' is a [[linguistic typology|way]] of classifying the languages of the world that groups languages according to their common [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphological]] structures. The field organizes languages on the basis of how those languages form [[word]]s by combining [[morpheme]]s. [[Analytic language|Analytic]] languages contain very little [[inflection]], instead relying on features like [[word order]] and auxiliary words to convey meaning. [[Synthetic language|Synthetic]] languages, ones that are not analytic, are divided into two categories: [[agglutinative language|agglutinative]] and [[fusional language|fusional]] languages. Agglutinative languages rely primarily on discrete particles ([[prefix]]es, [[suffix]]es, and [[infix]]es) for inflection, while fusional languages "fuse" inflectional categories together, often allowing one word ending to contain several categories, such that the original root can be difficult to extract. A further subcategory of agglutinative languages are [[polysynthetic language|polysynthetic]] languages, which take [[agglutination]] to a higher level by constructing entire sentences, including [[noun]]s, as one word.

Analytic, fusional, and agglutinative languages can all be found in many regions of the world. However, each category is dominant in some families and regions and essentially nonexistent in others. Analytic languages encompass the [[Sino-Tibetan languages|Sino-Tibetan]] family, including [[Chinese language|Chinese]], many languages in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and West Africa, and a few of the [[Germanic languages]]. Fusional languages encompass most of the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] family—for example, [[French language|French]], [[Russian language|Russian]], and [[Hindi]]—as well as the [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] family and a few members of the [[Uralic languages|Uralic]] family. Most of the world's languages, however, are agglutinative, including the [[Turkic languages|Turkic]], [[Japonic languages|Japonic]], [[Dravidian languages|Dravidian]], and [[Bantu languages|Bantu]] languages and most families in the Americas, Australia, the Caucasus, and non-[[Slavic languages|Slavic]] Russia. [[Constructed language]]s take a variety of morphological alignments.

The concept of discrete morphological categories has been criticized. Some linguists argue that most, if not all, languages are in a permanent state of transition, normally from fusional to analytic to agglutinative to fusional again. Others take issue with the definitions of the categories, arguing that they conflate several distinct, if related, variables.

==History==
{{expand section|date=November 2014}}
[[File:Winnipeg Forks - Trilingual Plaque.jpg|thumb|left|A trilingual plaque displaying members of all three major morphological alignments: analytic ([[English language|English]]), fusional ([[French language|French]]), and agglutinative ([[Plains Cree language|Plains Cree]]).]]
The field was first developed by brothers [[Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel|Friedrich von Schlegel]] and [[August Wilhelm von Schlegel|August von Schlegel]].{{citation needed|date=November 2014}}

==Analytic languages==
{{main|Analytic language}}
[[File:I speak Vietnamese.png|thumb|"I speak [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]]" in Vietnamese. Note the tonal, single-syllable nature of the words; this is frequent in analytic languages, i.e. ones in which there is little to no [[inflection]] and words stand on their own.]]
Analytic languages show a low ratio of [[morphemes]] to [[words]]; in fact, the correspondence is nearly one-to-one. Sentences in analytic languages are composed of independent root morphemes. Grammatical relations between words are expressed by separate words where they might otherwise be expressed by affixes, which are present to a minimal degree in such languages. There is little to no morphological change in words: they tend to be uninflected. Grammatical categories are indicated by word order (for example, inversion of verb and subject for interrogative sentences) or by bringing in additional words (for example, a word for "some" or "many" instead of a plural [[inflection]] like English ''-s''). Individual words carry a general meaning (root concept); nuances are expressed by other words. Finally, in analytic languages context and syntax are more important than [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]].

Analytic languages include some of the major [[East Asian languages]], such as [[Chinese language|Chinese]], and [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]]. Note that the [[ideographic writing]] systems of these languages play a strong role in regimenting linguistic continuity according to an analytic, or isolating, morphology (cf. [[orthography]]).{{cn|reason=How do we know that the writing system strongly influences the morphology and not the other way around?|date=January 2018}}

Additionally, [[English language|English]] is moderately analytic, and it and [[Afrikaans]] can be considered as some of the most analytic of all Indo-European languages. However, they are traditionally analyzed as [[fusional language]]s.

A related concept is the [[isolating language]], one in which there is only one, or on average close to one, [[morpheme]] per word. Not all analytic languages are isolating; for example, Chinese and English possess many [[compound word]]s, but contain few inflections for them.

==Synthetic languages==
{{main|Synthetic language}}
Synthetic languages form words by affixing a given number of dependent morphemes to a root morpheme. The morphemes may be distinguishable from the root, or they may not. They may be fused with it or among themselves (in that multiple pieces of grammatical information may potentially be packed into one morpheme).<!--, or they can also be realized as stress, pitch or tone shifts, or regular phonetic changes.--> Word order is less important for these languages than it is for analytic languages, since individual words express the grammatical relations that would otherwise be indicated by syntax. In addition, there tends to be a high degree of [[agreement (linguistics)|concordance]] (agreement, or cross-reference between different parts of the sentence). Therefore, morphology in synthetic languages is more important than syntax. Most [[Indo-European languages]] are moderately synthetic.

There are two subtypes of synthesis, according to whether morphemes are clearly differentiable or not. These subtypes are ''agglutinative'' and ''fusional'' (or ''inflectional'' or ''flectional'' in older terminology).

===Fusional languages===
{{main|Fusional language}}
[[File:Déclinaisons noms pluriel polonais.jpg|thumb|left|300px|alt=A table with headings in French showing plural noun declensions;  the caption links to a text equivalent.|[[Polish_morphology#Nouns|Polish noun declension]] collapses several factors into one ending: [[grammatical number|number]] (only plural is shown), [[grammatical gender|gender]], [[animacy (linguistics)|animacy]], and [[grammatical case|case]].]]
Morphemes in fusional languages are not readily distinguishable from the root or among themselves. Several grammatical bits of meaning may be fused into one affix. Morphemes may also be expressed by internal phonological changes in the root (i.e. [[morphophonology]]), such as [[consonant gradation]] and [[Ablaut|vowel gradation]], or by [[suprasegmental]] features such as [[stress (linguistics)|stress]] or [[tone (linguistics)|tone]], which are of course inseparable from the root.

The [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] and [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] languages are the most typically cited examples of fusional languages.<ref name="hand">{{cite book|title=Handbook of American Indian Languages|volume=1|last=Boas|first=Franz|date=2010|publisher=Nabu Press|isbn=978-1-177-52533-6|pages=74–76}}</ref> However, others have been described. For example, [[Navajo language|Navajo]] is sometimes categorized as a fusional language because its complex system of verbal affixes has become condensed and irregular enough that discerning individual morphemes is rarely possible.<ref>{{cite book|page=323|title=The Languages of Native North America|date=2001|last=Mithun|first=Marianne|publisher=[[Cambridge University]] Press|isbn=978-0-521-29875-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|page=442|last=Sloane|first=Thomas O.|title=Encyclopedia of Rhetoric|date=2001|isbn=978-0-19-512595-5|publisher=[[Oxford University]] Press}}</ref> Some [[Uralic languages]] are described as fusional, particularly the [[Sami languages]] and [[Estonian language|Estonian]]. On the other hand, not all Indo-European languages are fusional; for example, English and [[Afrikaans]], as well as some [[North Germanic languages]] lean more toward the analytic.
{{Clear}}

===Agglutinative languages===
{{main|Agglutinative language}}
[[File:Beriyn Poliklinika, Sölƶa-Ġala.jpg|thumb|right|A plaque in [[Chechen language|Chechen]], an agglutinative language.]]
Agglutinative languages have words containing several morphemes that are always clearly differentiable from one another in that each morpheme represents only one grammatical meaning and the boundaries between those morphemes are easily demarcated; that is, the bound morphemes are affixes, and they may be individually identified. Agglutinative languages tend to have a high number of morphemes per word, and their morphology is usually highly regular, with a notable exception being [[Georgian language|Georgian]], among others.

Agglutinative languages include [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], [[Tamil language|Tamil]], [[Telugu language|Telugu]], [[Kannada language|Kannada]], [[Malayalam language|Malayalam]], [[Turkish language|Turkish]], [[Saho language|Saho]], [[Mongolian language|Mongolian]], [[Korean language|Korean]], [[Japanese language|Japanese]], [[Swahili language|Swahili]], [[Zulu language|Zulu]] and [[Indonesian_language|Indonesian]].

===Polysynthetic languages===
{{main|Polysynthetic language}}
In 1836, [[Wilhelm von Humboldt]] proposed a third category for classifying languages, a category that he labeled ''polysynthetic''. (The term ''polysynthesis'' was first used in linguistics by [[Peter Stephen DuPonceau]] who borrowed it from chemistry.) These languages have a high morpheme-to-word ratio, a highly regular morphology, and a tendency for verb forms to include morphemes that refer to several arguments besides the subject (''[[polypersonalism]]''). Another feature of polysynthetic languages is commonly expressed as "the ability to form words that are equivalent to whole sentences in other languages". The distinction between synthetic languages and polysynthetic languages is therefore relative: the place of one language largely depends on its relation to other languages displaying similar characteristics on the same scale.

Many Amerindian languages are polysynthetic; indeed, most of the world's polysynthetic languages are native to North America.<ref name="unm">{{cite web|url=https://www.unm.edu/~jbybee/downloads/Bybee1997SemAsp.pdf|publisher=[[University of New Mexico]]|title=Semantic Aspects of Morphological Typology|last=Bybee|first=Joan|access-date=November 14, 2014}}</ref> [[Inuktitut]] is one example, for instance the word-phrase: ''tavvakiqutiqarpiit'' roughly translates to "Do you have any tobacco for sale?".{{citation needed|date=November 2014}} However, it is a common misconception that polysynthetic morphology is universal among Amerindian languages. [[Chinook language|Chinook]] and [[Shoshone language|Shoshone]], for instance, are simply agglutinative, as their nouns stand mostly separate from their verbs.<ref name="hand"/>

===Oligosynthetic languages===
{{main|Oligosynthetic language}}
Oligosynthetic languages are ones in which very few morphemes, perhaps only a few hundred, combine as in polysynthetic languages. [[Benjamin Whorf]] categorized [[Nahuatl]] and [[Blackfoot language|Blackfoot]] as oligosynthetic, but most linguists disagree with this classification and instead label them polysynthetic or simply agglutinative. No known languages are widely accepted as oligosynthetic. {{cn|date=September 2021}}

==In constructed languages==
[[File:Logji.png|thumb|right|The rigidly defined, analytic words of [[Lojban]] make the language useful for describing logic – in this case, [[discrete mathematics]].]]
[[Constructed language]]s (conlangs) take a variety of morphological alignments. Despite the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] family's typical fusional alignment, most [[universal auxiliary language]]s based on the family have ended up being agglutinative morphologically because agglutination is more transparent than fusion and thus furthers various goals of the language creators. This pattern began with [[Volapük]], which is strongly agglutinative, and was continued with [[Esperanto]], which tends to be agglutinative as well.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Blank |first=Detlev |title=Internationale Plansprachen. Eine Einführung |trans-title=International Planned Languages. An Introduction |journal=Sammlung Akademie-Verlag |publisher=Akademie-Verlag |year=1985 |issn=0138-550X }}</ref>  Other languages inspired by Esperanto like [[Ido (language)|Ido]] and [[Novial]] also tend to be agglutinative, although some examples like [[Interlingua]] might be considered more fusional. [[Zonal constructed languages]] such as [[Interslavic]] tend to follow the language families they are based on.

[[Fictional language]]s vary among [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s languages for the [[Middle-earth|Middle earth]] universe, for example, [[Sindarin]] is fusional while [[Quenya]] is agglutinative.<ref name=Tikka>{{cite conference|first=Petri |last=Tikka |title=The Finnicization of Quenya |journal=Arda Philology |pages=1–20 |publisher=Arda Society |year=2007 |book-title=Arda Philology: Proceedings of the First International Conference on J. R. R. Tolkien's Invented Languages, Omientielva Minya, Stockholm 2005 |volume=1 |isbn=9789197350013 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SOF7m2m3AXcC&dq=The+Finnicization+of+Quenya&pg=PA1}}</ref> Among [[engineered language]]s, [[Toki Pona]] is completely analytic, as it contains only a limited set of words with no inflections or compounds. [[Lojban]] is analytic to the extent that every ''gismu'' (basic word, not counting particles) involves pre-determined syntactical roles for every ''gismu'' coming after it in a clause, though it does involve agglutination of roots when forming [[calque]]s.<ref name="lojban">{{cite web|url=http://www.lojban.org/publications/reference_grammar/chapter4.html|publisher=Lojban.org|title=Chapter 4: The Shape Of Words To Come: Lojban Morphology|access-date=November 19, 2014}}</ref> [[Ithkuil]], on the other hand, contains both agglutination in its addition of affixes and extreme fusion in that these affixes often result from the fusion of numerous morphemes via [[Indo-European ablaut|ablaut]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ithkuil.net/02_morpho-phonology.html|publisher=Ithkuil.net|title=Chapter 2: Morpho-Phonology|access-date=November 19, 2014}}</ref>

==Interconnectedness==
While the above scheme of analytic, fusional, and agglutinative languages dominated linguistics for many years—at least since the 1920s—it has fallen out of favor more recently. A common objection has been that most languages display features of all three types, if not in equal measure, some of them contending that a fully fusional language would be completely [[suppletion|suppletive]]. Jennifer Garland of the [[University of California, Santa Barbara]] gives [[Sinhala language|Sinhala]] as an example of a language that demonstrates the flaws in the traditional scheme: she argues that while its affixes, [[clitic]]s, and [[postposition]]s would normally be considered markers of agglutination, they are too closely intertwined to the root, yet classifying the language as primarily fusional, as it usually is, is also unsatisfying.<ref name="sinhala">{{cite web|url=http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.ling.d7/files/sitefiles/research/papers/17/garland_vol17.pdf|publisher=[[University of California, Santa Barbara]]|last=Garland|first=Jennifer|title=Morphological Typology and the Complexity of Nominal Morphology in Sinhala|date=2006|access-date=December 8, 2014}}</ref>

===Cyclical evolution===
[[File:Analogue clock face.svg|thumb|right|150px|A clock face has been used as a metaphor for the evolution amongst analytic, agglutinative and fusional states]]
[[R. M. W. Dixon]] (1998) theorizes that languages normally evolve in a cycle from [[Fusional language|fusional]] to [[Analytic language|analytic]] to [[Agglutinative language|agglutinative]] to fusional again. He analogizes this cycle to a clock, placing fusional languages at 12:00, analytic languages at 4:00, and agglutinative languages at 8:00. Dixon suggests that, for example, [[Old Chinese]] was at about 3:00 (mostly analytic with some fusional elements), while modern varieties are around 5:00 (leaning instead toward agglutination), and also guesses that [[Proto-Tai language|Proto-Tai-Kadai]] may have been fusional. On the other hand, he argues that modern [[Finno-Ugric languages|Finno-Ugric]] and [[Dravidian languages|Dravidian]] languages are on the transition from agglutinative to fusional, with the Finno-Ugric family being further along. Dixon cites the [[Egyptian language]] as one that has undergone the entire cycle in three thousand years.<ref name="dixon">{{cite book|title=The Rise and Fall of Languages|last=Dixon|first=R. M. W.|author-link=R. M. W. Dixon|date=1998|publisher=[[Cambridge University]] Press|pages=42–43|isbn=978-0-521-62654-5}}</ref>

Other linguists have proposed similar concepts. For instance, [[Elly Van Gelderen|Elly van Gelderen]] sees the regular patterns of linguistic change as a cycle. In the unidirectional cycles, older features are replaced by newer items. One example is [[grammaticalization]], where a lexical item became a grammatical marker. The markers may further grammaticalize, and a new marker may come in place to substitute the loss of meaning of the previous marker.<ref>van Gelderen, Elly. (2011). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=QBAWDAAAQBAJ&q=grammaticalization The Linguistic Cycle: Language Change and the Language Faculty]''. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.</ref><ref>van Gelderen, Elly. (2013). [http://www.public.asu.edu/~gelderen/LLCompass2013.pdf The Linguistic Cycle and the Language Faculty]. ''Language and Linguistics Compass, 7''(4), 233–250.</ref>

===WALS===
The [[World Atlas of Language Structures]] (WALS) sees the categorization of languages as strictly analytic, agglutinative, or fusional as misleading, arguing that these categories conflate multiple variables. WALS lists these variables as:
*Phonological fusion – how intrinsically connected grammatical markers are phonologically to their host words<ref name="c20">{{cite web|url=http://wals.info/chapter/20|publisher=WALS|title=Chapter Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives|access-date=August 5, 2014}}</ref>
*Formative exponence – the number of categories expressed in a single marker (e.g., tense + number + gender for verbs in some languages)<ref name="c21">{{cite web|url=http://wals.info/chapter/21|publisher=WALS|title=Chapter Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives|access-date=August 5, 2014}}</ref>
*Flexivity – allomorphy and inflectional classes such as possessive classification<ref name="c59">{{cite web|url=http://wals.info/chapter/59|publisher=WALS|title=Chapter Possessive Classification|access-date=August 5, 2014}}</ref>
These categories allow to capture non-traditional distributions of typological traits. For example, high exponence for nouns (e.g., case + number) is typically thought of as a trait of fusional languages. However, it is absent in many traditionally fusional languages like [[Arabic language|Arabic]] but present in many traditionally agglutinative languages like [[Finnish language|Finnish]], [[Yaqui language|Yaqui]], and [[Cree language|Cree]].<ref name="c21"/>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* {{cite web|url= http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/ikos/EXFAC03-AAS/h05/larestoff/linguistics/Chapter%204.(H05).pdf |title=Linguistic typology }}&nbsp;{{small|(275&nbsp;[[Kibibyte|KiB]])}}, chapter 9 of [http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/ikos/EXFAC03-AAS/h05/larestoff/linguistics/ Halvor Eifring & Rolf Theil: ''Linguistics for Students of Asian and African Languages'']
* The book [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12629 ''Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech''] by [[Edward Sapir]] (1921) contains a classic introduction to the subject.
* Japanese Morphological Analysis API [https://labs.goo.ne.jp/api/2015/1302/ ''Japanese Morphological Analysis API''] by NTT Resonant

[[Category:Linguistic morphology|typology]]