Analytic and synthetic languages. Analytical structure of the English language

Basic type

Degree of synthesis

A. Simple purely relational languages

1) Isolating 2) Isolating with agglutination

Analytical

Chinese, Annamese (Vietnamese), Ewe, Tibetan

B. Complex purely relational languages

1) Agglutinating, isolating

Analytical

Polynesian

2) Agglutinating

Synthetic

Turkish

3) Fusion-agglutinating

Synthetic

Classic Tibetan

4) Symbolic

Analytical

B. Simple mixed-relational languages

1) Agglutinating

Synthetic

2) Fusion

Analytical

French

B. Complex mixed-relational languages

1) Agglutinating

Polysynthetic

2) Fusion

Analytical

English, Latin, Greek

3) Fusion, symbolic

Slightly synthetic

Sanskrit

4) Symbolic-fusion

Synthetic

In the typological characteristics of inflectional languages, a special place is occupied by the determination of the proportion of synthetic and analytical forms of the language, the role of function words in the formation of word forms, phrases and sentences. Russian has a synthetic structure, English has an analytical one.

Analytical structure involves a wider use of service words, as well as phonetic means and word order for the formation of word forms and phrase forms. The languages ​​of the analytical system are English, French, Hindustani, Persian, Bulgarian. Affixation, for example, in English is used mainly for word formation (past tense suffix ed). Nouns and adjectives are characterized by the poverty of inflection forms; on the contrary, the verb has a developed system of tense forms, which are formed almost exclusively analytically. Syntactic constructions are also distinguished by analyticism, since the main role in the expression of syntactic meanings, it belongs to functional words, word order and intonation.

Synthetic tuning characterized by a greater role of word forms formed with the help of affixes - inflections and formative suffixes and prefixes. The languages ​​of the synthetic system are Russian, Polish, Lithuanian and most other Indo-European languages; all ancient written Indo-European languages ​​were synthetic, for example, Latin, Greek, Gothic.

Morphological types of languages:

1. Insulating (root isolating, amorphous) type (aging). These languages ​​are characterized by complete or almost complete absence inflections and, as a result, a very large grammatical significance of the word order (subject - definition of the subject - definition of the predicate - predicate), each root expresses one lexical meaning, a weak opposition of meaningful and auxiliary roots. The root isolating languages ​​are Chinese, Vietnamese, Dungan, Muong and many others. etc. Modern English is evolving towards root isolation.

2. Agglutinative (agglutinative) type. Languages ​​of this type are characterized by a developed system of inflection, but each grammatical meaning has its own indicator, the absence of grammatical alternations at the root, the same type of inflection for all words belonging to the same part of speech (i.e., the presence of a single type of declension for all nouns and a single for all verbs of the conjugation type), the number of morphemes in a word is not limited. These include Turkic, Tungus-Manchurian, Finno-Ugric languages, Kartvelian, Andaman and some other languages. The principle of agglutination is also the basis of the grammar of the artificial language in Esperatno.

Let's take the instrumental case as an example. plural Komi-Permyak word "sin" (eye) - "sinnezon". Here the morpheme "nez" is an indicator of the plural, and the morpheme "on" is an indicator of the instrumental case.

3. Inflectional (inflectional, fusional). Languages ​​of this type are characterized by a developed system of inflection (diversity of declensions and conjugations: in Russian - three declensions and two conjugations, in Latin - five declensions and four conjugations.) and the ability to convey the entire gamut of grammatical meanings with one indicator:

Internal inflection, that is, with grammatically significant alternation at the root (Semitic languages),

External inflection (ending), fusion, that is, with the simultaneous expression of several grammatical meanings with one affix (for example, in the Russian word "home" the ending of the word "-a" is both a sign and male, and plural and nominative case).

Also in these languages, one affix can express different meanings(suffix -tel-: face teacher, device switch, abstract factor, substance blood substitute), the number of morphemes in one word is limited (no more than six; the exception is German), the presence of proper and common nouns, the presence of different types of stress.

These include Slavic, Baltic, Italic, some of the Indian and Iranian languages.

4. A number of typologists also highlight incorporating (polysynthetic) languages ​​where there are "word-sentences", complex complexes: in the composition verb form includes (sometimes in a truncated form) nominal stems corresponding to the object and circumstances, the subject, as well as some grammatical indicators. These include languages Chukotka-Kamchatka family, some languages ​​of the Indians of North America.

A feature of this type of language is that the sentence is constructed as a compound word, i.e., unformed word roots are agglutinated into one common whole, which will be both a word and a sentence. Parts of this whole are both the elements of the word and the members of the sentence. The whole is a word-sentence, where the beginning is the subject, the end is the predicate, and additions with their definitions and circumstances are incorporated (inserted) into the middle. For the Mexican example: ninakakwa, where ni- "I", naka- “ed-” (i.e. “eat”), a kwa- object, "meat-". In Russian, three grammatically designed words are obtained I eat meat, and vice versa, such a fully-formed combination as ant-eater, does not constitute an offer.

In order to show how you can this type languages ​​to “incorporate”, here is another example from the Chukchi language: you-ata-kaa-nmy-rkyn- “I kill fat deer”, literally: “I-fat-deer-kill-do”, where is the skeleton of the “body”: you-nmy-rkyn, which incorporates kaa- "deer" and its definition ata- "fat"; The Chukchi language does not tolerate any other arrangement, and the whole is a word-sentence, where the above order of elements is also observed.

Some analogue of incorporation in Russian can be the replacement of the sentence "I fish" with one word - "fishing". Of course, such constructions are not typical for the Russian language. They are clearly artificial. Moreover, in Russian, in the form compound word can only imagine a simple non-proprietary proposal with a personal pronoun as the subject. It is impossible to “fold” into one word the sentence “The boy is fishing” or “I am fishing good fish". In incorporating languages, any sentence can only be represented as a single compound word. So, for example, in the Chukchi language, the sentence “We guard new networks” will look like “Mytturkupregynrityrkyn”. It can be said that in incorporating languages ​​the boundary between word formation and syntax is blurred to a certain extent.

Speaking about the four morphological types of languages, we must remember that just as there is no chemically pure, unadulterated substance in nature, there is not a single completely inflectional, agglutinative, root-isolating or incorporating language. Thus, the Chinese and Dungan languages, which are predominantly root-isolating, contain some, albeit insignificant, elements of agglutination. There are elements of agglutination in inflectional Latin(for example, the formation of forms of the imperfect or the future first tense). And vice versa, in agglutinative Estonian we encounter elements of inflection. So, for example, in the word töötavad (work), the ending "-vad" denotes both the third person and the plural.

This typological classification of languages, which is basically morphological, cannot be considered final, mainly because of its inability to reflect all the specifics of a particular language, taking into account its structure. But it contains in an implicit form the possibility of its refinement by analyzing other areas of the language. For example, in isolating languages ​​such as classical Chinese, Vietnamese, and Guinean, one-syllable words equal to a morpheme, the presence of polytony, and a number of other interrelated characteristics are observed.

Russian language is inflectional language of the synthetic structure .

The elephant is catching up with Moska. The "source" of action is the elephant; the action is "applied" to Moska. The pug is chasing the elephant. Here Moska is the source of action; it is directed at the elephant. How do we guess about it? By endings in words. If Pug - then this is the subject, the source of the action; Pug is an addition, not a source of action. No matter how you shuffle the words in the sentence, the word Moska will still be an addition: the elephant caught up with the Pug. The elephant caught up with Moska ... The word order does not show where the subject is, where the object is. This endings show this: -a, -u in the word Pug, zero and -a in the word elephant.

Here is a word from some sentence unknown to us: wave. Is it subject or not? It is clear that the subject is not: the word itself, by its composition, the ending -y, says that it is an addition.

So, grammatical meanings can be expressed in the word itself, in its structure, for example, with the help of endings, or grammatical alternations, or doubling the stem ... But these same grammatical meanings can also find their expression outside the word - in a sentence. Example - English sentences: A dog runs down an elephant - The dog is catching up with the elephant; An elephant runs down a dog - An elephant is catching up with a dog. Who is catching up with whom - we learn only from the whole sentence, this is evidenced by the word order, and only he.

There are languages ​​where grammatical meanings are expressed mainly within the word: Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Polish, Finnish... Such languages ​​are called synthetic: they combine in a word, form a synthesis, lexical and grammatical meanings. There are languages ​​where grammatical meanings are expressed mainly outside the word, in the sentence: English, French, and all isolating languages ​​(see Isolating languages), such as Vietnamese. Such languages ​​are called analytical, in which the word is a transmitter of lexical meaning, and grammatical meanings are transmitted separately: by the order of words in a sentence, function words, intonation ...

Some languages ​​clearly have a predilection for expressing grammatical meanings by means of a sentence, predominantly using analytical indicators, while others concentrate these indicators within a word.

There are no absolutely synthetic languages, that is, those that do not resort to grammatical analysis. So, the Russian language is synthetic, but it uses many auxiliary words - conjunctions, prepositions, particles, intonation plays a grammatical role. On the other hand, fully analytic languages ​​are rare. Even in Vietnamese some auxiliary words tend to approach the position of the affix.

Languages ​​are changing. For example, the Russian language, distinctly synthetic, shows a slow movement towards analyticism. This movement is microscopic, it manifests itself in insignificant details, but these details are a number, and there are no other details that show counter-motion, i.e., act in favor of enhancing synthesis. Here is an example: instead of the form of grams, kilograms ( genitive plural) in everyday speech is often used - in the role of this case - the form without -oa: three hundred grams of cheese, five kilograms of potatoes. Strict literary norm requires in these cases grams, kilograms. New, recently widespread units of measurement in the SI system also have a form in the genitive plural that is equal to the form of the nominative case: one hundred bits, eman, gauss, angstrom, etc., and already as a norm. The difference seems to be small - say grams or grams. But note: grams - the form itself says that this is the genitive plural. Gram is the singular nominative and plural genitive form. The only way to tell them apart is in the sentence. Consequently, the exact indication of the case is shifted from the "shoulders" of the word to the "shoulders" of the sentence. The fact is private, this is an insignificant detail, but many details add up to the overall picture: analytical trends in the Russian language of the 20th century. intensify.

It turned out that the younger the generation, the more inclined it is to use analytical constructions - in cases where the language makes it possible to choose between analyticism and synthetism. All this together allows us to say that the Russian literary language last century slowly accumulates the features of analyticism. How far will this movement go? Will it continue in the future? It's hard to predict. But there is no doubt that - with an extremely slow pace of change - our language will remain vividly synthetic for centuries to come.