Analytical language. Analytic and synthetic languages
Morphological typology (and this is chronologically the first and most developed area of typological research) takes into account, firstly, the ways of expressing grammatical meanings and, secondly, the nature of the connection in the word of its significant parts (morphemes). Depending on the ways of expressing grammatical meanings, synthetic and analytical languages are distinguished. Depending on the nature of the connection of morphemes, agglutinative and fussy languages are distinguished (§ 141-142).
In the languages of the world, there are two main groups of ways of expressing grammatical meanings: 1) synthetic ways and 2) analytical. Synthetic methods are characterized by the combination of a grammatical indicator with the word itself (this is the motivation for the term synthetic1); such an indicator that introduces the grammatical meaning "inside the word" can be an ending, a suffix, a prefix, an internal inflection (i.e., alternation of sounds at the root, for example , flow - flows - flow), change of stress (legs - legs), suppletivism (I - me, I go - I go, good - better), repetition of the morpheme2. Learn more about grammatical methods in different languages see Reformed 1967: 263-313.
A common feature of analytical methods is the expression of grammatical meaning outside the word, separately from it - for example, using prepositions, conjunctions, articles, auxiliary verbs and other auxiliary words, as well as using word order and general intonation of the statement3.
Most languages have both analytical and synthetic means of expressing grammatical meanings, but their specific weight varies. Depending on which methods prevail, languages of a synthetic and analytical type are distinguished. All Slavic languages belong to synthetic languages.
Synthetic (from Greek synthesis - combination, compilation, association) - based on synthesis, united.
This is, in particular, the origin of the Proto-Slavic indicator of the imperfect: the duration of the action was conveyed figuratively - by doubling the suffixal vowel or adding another, similar, vowel, cf. st.-glor. VERB, NESYAH.
3 Analytical (from the Greek. analysis - separation, decomposition, dismemberment - separating, decomposing into its constituent parts; associated with the analysis of Bulgarian), Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Yakut, Arabic, Swahili, etc.
To languages analytical system include all Romance languages, Bulgarian, English, German, Danish, Modern Greek, New Persian, etc. Analytical methods predominate in these languages, but synthetic grammatical means are also used to some extent.
Languages in which there are almost no possibilities for the synthetic expression of a number of grammatical meanings (as in Chinese, Vietnamese, Khmer, Lao, Thai, etc.), in early XIX in. called amorphous ("formless"), that is, as if devoid of form, but already Humboldt called them isolating. It was seen that these languages are by no means devoid of grammatical form, just a number of grammatical meanings (namely, syntactic, relational meanings) are expressed here separately, as if "isolated", from the lexical meaning of the word (for details, see Solntseva 1985).
There are languages in which the root of the word, on the contrary, turns out to be so "overburdened" with various auxiliary and dependent root morphemes that such a word turns into a sentence in meaning, but at the same time remains formalized as a word. Such a “word-sentence” device is called incorporation (lat. incorporatio - inclusion in its composition, from lat. m - in and corpus - body, single whole), and the corresponding languages are incorporating or polysynthetic (some Indian languages, Chukchi, Koryak and etc.).
MORPHOLOGICAL TYPES OF LANGUAGES
Morphological typology (and this is chronologically the first and most developed area of typological research) takes into account, firstly, the ways of expressing grammatical meanings and, secondly, the nature morpheme compounds in the word. Depending on the ways of expressing grammatical meanings, there are synthetic and analytic languages(§ 26; see also § 27). Depending on the nature of the connection, morphemes are distinguished agglutinative and fusional languages(§§ 28-29).
26. Analytic and synthetic languages
In the languages of the world, there are two main groups of ways of expressing grammatical meanings: 1) synthetic ways and 2) analytical. Synthetic methods are characterized by the combination of a grammatical indicator with the word itself (this is the motivation for the term synthetic). Such an indicator that introduces the grammatical meaning "inside the word" can be ending, suffix, prefix, internal inflection(i.e. alternation of sounds in the root, for example, flow - flow - flow), change accents (legs - legs), suppletive modification word stems ( I - me, go - go, good - better), transfix(in Semitic languages: a complex consisting of several vowels, which is "woven" into a three-consonant root, adding to it
Most languages have both analytical and synthetic means of expressing grammatical meanings, but their specific weight varies. Depending on which methods prevail, languages of a synthetic and analytical type are distinguished. Synthetic languages include all Slavic languages (except Bulgarian), Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Yakut, German, Arabic, Swahili and many others. others
The languages of the analytical system include all the Romance languages, Bulgarian, English, Danish, Modern Greek, New Persian and many others. etc. Analytical methods in these languages prevail, however, synthetic grammatical means are also used to some extent.
Languages in which there are almost no possibilities for the synthetic expression of a number of grammatical meanings (as in Chinese, Vietnamese, Khmer, Lao, Thai, etc.) at the beginning of the 19th century. called amorphous("formless"), i.e. as if devoid of form, but already Humboldt called them insulating. It has been shown that these languages are by no means devoid of grammatical form, just a series of grammatical meanings (namely, syntactic,
relational meanings) are expressed here separately, as if "isolated", from the lexical meaning of the word (For details, see Solntseva 1985, Solntsev 1995).
There are languages in which a word, on the contrary, turns out to be so “overburdened” with various auxiliary and dependent root morphemes that such a word turns into a sentence in meaning, but at the same time remains formalized as a word. Such a "word-sentence" device is called incorporation(lat. incorporate- "inclusion in its composition", from lat. in- "in and corpus- "body, whole"), and the corresponding languages - incorporating, or polysynthetic(some Indian languages, Chukchi, Koryak, etc.).
Synthetic(from Greek. synthesis- combination, compilation, association) - based on synthesis, united.
Analytical languages- languages in which grammatical meanings are mainly expressed outside the word, in the sentence: English, French, and all isolating languages, such as Vietnamese. In these languages, 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, etc.
Examples
Phrase in Russian - "father loves son". If you change the word order - "A father loves his son", then the meaning of the phrase will not change, the word "son" and the word "father" change the case ending. Phrase in English - "the father loves the son". When the word order is changed to "the son loves the father" the meaning of the phrase also changes exactly the opposite - "son loves father", since there are no case endings, and the word son sounds and is spelled the same in the case of its correspondence to the nominative case of the Russian language, and indirect cases. Therefore, the meaning of a sentence depends on the order of the words in the sentence. The same phenomenon is observed if we consider French phrase "le pere aime le fils" with the same meaning.
see also
Links
- // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .
See what "Analytical language" is in other dictionaries:
ANALYTICAL LANGUAGE- (English analytical language). A language that is characterized by grammatical relations using auxiliary words and word order in a sentence (for example, in English), rather than case endings, as in synthetic languages (for example, ... ... New dictionary methodological terms and concepts (theory and practice of teaching languages)
ANALYTICAL LANGUAGE- (eng. analytic language) any language for which it is characteristic to express grammatical relations with the help of additional words, and not endings. In such languages, especially English, word order is regulated by special syntactic rules. ... ... Great Psychological Encyclopedia
ANALYTICAL LANGUAGE- Any language that tends to express grammatical connections with auxiliary words in more than by changing the form of the word. Syntactic relations in such languages are expressed mainly by word order ... ... Dictionary in psychology
- (fr.). Inherent or belonging to the analysis. Vocabulary foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910. ANALYTICAL [gr. analytikos] 1) pertaining to analysis, based on the application of analysis; 2) a. philosophy direction ... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language
App., use. comp. often Morphology: ad. analytically 1. Analytical refers to such human reasoning, which uses the methods of analysis, logical analysis. Analytical approach, view. 2. If they say about a person that he has ... ... Dictionary of Dmitriev
Navajo Self-name: Diné bizaad Countries: USA Regions: Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado Total number carriers: 178,000 ... Wikipedia
Not to be confused with isolated languages. Linguistic typology Morphological Analytical languages Isolating languages Synthetic languages Inflectional languages Agglutinative languages ... Wikipedia
- (from Latin agglutinatio gluing) languages \u200b\u200bthat have a structure in which the dominant type of inflection is agglutination (“gluing”) of various formants (suffixes or prefixes), and each of them carries only one ... ... Wikipedia
Linguistic typology Morphological Analytical languages Isolating languages Synthetic languages Inflectional languages Agglutinative languages ... Wikipedia
Books
- Cham language. Oral dialects of the Eastern dialect, N.F. Alieva, Bui Khanh The. This monograph is devoted to the Cham language - a little-studied ancient written language of the people living in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and Kampuchea. It is an Austronesian language that has been lost in…
The section is very easy to use. In the proposed field, just enter the desired word, and we will give you a list of its meanings. It should be noted that our site provides data from different sources- encyclopedic, explanatory, derivational dictionaries. Here you can also get acquainted with examples of the use of the word you entered.
What does "synthetic languages" mean?
Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998
synthetic languages
a class of languages in which grammatical meanings are expressed within a word using affixes or internal inflection, e.g. Russian, German, Lithuanian and other Indo-European languages.
Synthetic languages
typological class of languages in which synthetic forms of expression of grammatical meanings predominate. S. i. are opposed to analytical languages, in which grammatical meanings are expressed using function words, and polysynthetic languages, in which several nominal and verbal lexical meanings. The basis for dividing languages into synthetic, analytic, and polysynthetic is essentially syntactic, so this division intersects with the morphological classification of languages, but does not coincide with it. The division of languages into synthetic and analytical was proposed by A. Schlegel (only for inflectional languages), A. Schleicher extended it to agglutinative languages. Morphemes included in a word in S. Ya. can be combined according to the principle of agglutination, fusion, and undergo positional alternations (for example, Turkic vowel harmony). Synthetic forms are found in a large part of the world's languages. Since the language, in principle, is not typologically homogeneous, the term "S. I." applied in practice to languages with enough a high degree synthesis, for example, Turkic, Finno-Ugric, most of the Semitic-Hamitic, Indo-European (ancient), Mongolian, Tungus-Manchu, some African (Bantu), Caucasian, Paleo-Asiatic, American Indian languages.
Lit .: Kuznetsov P. S., Morphological classification of languages, M., 1954; Uspensky B. A., Structural typology languages, M., 1965; Rozhdestvensky Yu. V., Typology of the word, M., 1969; Linguistic typology, in the book: General linguistics, v. 2, M., 1972; Home K. M., Language typology 19th and 20th century views, Wash., 1966; Pettier B., La typologie, in Le langage, Encyclopedie de la Pleiade, v. 25, P., 1968.
An impressive number of existing or ever existing languages inevitably needs classification, one of which is the division of languages into synthetic and analytical. Although the existence of these two types is generally recognized, the criteria that served as the basis for such a classification are still under discussion. This is due to the fact that the analyticity or syntheticity of a language can be deduced from both morphological and syntactic considerations.
Morphology
This branch of linguistics studies grammatical forms words. There are two main strategies for their formation: the use of various morphemes (prefixes, affixes and inflections) or auxiliary words. The relationship between the number of morphemes and the number meaningful words in an arbitrarily selected segment of the text shows the index of language synthesis. The American linguist Joseph Greenberg calculated this ratio. For Vietnamese, it is 1.06 (that is, in a segment of text 100 words long, only 106 morphemes were found), and for English - 1.68. In Russian, the synthetic index ranges from 2.33 to 2.45.
Greenberg's method for establishing the difference between analytic and synthetic languages is called quantitative. He assumes that all languages with a synthetic index from 2 to 3 can be classified as synthetic. Languages for which the index is less are analytic.
Syntax
The absence of a morphological indicator of the word form requires a stricter word order, which allows you to establish grammatical relationships between lexemes. Already from the name itself, one can determine which languages are called languages of the analytical system: in order to understand what in question, you need to conduct some analysis of the statement, to determine what refers to what. In addition to the rigid word order, it is necessary to pay attention to intonation. If, for example, in English interrogative sentences are introduced using function words, then in Russian it is possible to establish differences only with the help of intonation (for example, "Mom came" and "Mom came?").
Grammar
The syntactic and morphological principles of distinguishing between analytic and synthetic languages cannot be considered separately. It is necessary to take into account the grammatical structure of the language as a whole, since the boundary between the two types of information transfer often looks unsteady. If in relation to English we can confidently say that this is the language of the analytical system (the endings - (e) s, - (e) d, -ing - that's, perhaps, all that is immediately remembered from English morphemes), then with Russian the situation is more complicated : we see both the active use of inflections (for example, case endings) and auxiliary verbs (in the formation of the future tense of imperfective verbs). A similar situation is observed in other synthetic languages. Like morphology, syntax is just one of many aspects of grammar. And these two sections of linguistics are closely related. Therefore, the difference in the languages of analytic and synthetic tuning can be established only from the standpoint of a comprehensive study of grammar.
Article
An example is the development of articles. In the vast majority of languages, it develops from the quantitative numeral "one", and the definite one - from the demonstrative pronoun. Initially, it plays a syntactic role: it shows whether the subject is known or unknown to the listener. But gradually the article also acquires a morphological role, showing the gender, number, and sometimes even the case of the noun. This is especially evident in the German language, where the article, as a function word, shows the morphological characteristics of the noun, but at the same time it changes, adding various inflections. Given this feature, is German a synthetic or analytical language? The answer requires the study of grammar in its totality. Greenberg index for German language demonstrates its borderline position: 1.97.
Language in development
The development of comparative linguistics allowed linguists to formulate the principles of language reconstruction, thanks to which one can get acquainted with grammatical structure preliterate languages. Thanks to this, it is known that the connections between the words of the Proto-Indo-European language were expressed by adding various morphemes. AT written languages the same situation is observed: Latin is clearly a synthetic language, but English or French that arose on its basis are now considered analytical.
Phonetics
The simplest explanation for this is a change in phonetic order. Already at the stage of late Latin, inflections, expressed mainly by vowels, begin to be pronounced indistinctly, which leads to unification morphological forms. Therefore, there is a need for additional labeling grammatical connections: prepositions, auxiliary verbs and the rapidly developing category of the article are becoming increasingly important. You can often meet erroneous statement, what English language simply lost all cases, except for the nominative (Subjective Case) and possessive (Possessive Case), which arose on the basis of the genitive. Sometimes the accusative case (Objective Case) is also distinguished. But in fact, it was not the withering away of cases, but their merger. The current common case in English has retained the forms of both the ancient nominative and dative cases.
From analysis to synthesis
There is also a reverse process. Future tense Latin was formed synthetically, but with a change in the pronunciation of all its forms, they began to sound the same. As already mentioned, in this case, the grammar adapts to this process, allowing the use of forms of the verb habere as auxiliary. This feature has passed into the emerging Romance languages, but its evolution at first glance looks unexpected. In Spanish, the forms of the verb haber became the endings of the Futuro Simple de Indicativo tense, merging with the stem of the infinitive. As a result, favorite (for their simplicity) by each student arose Spanish language human forms of the future tense: comeré, comerás, comerá, comeremos, comeréis, comerán, in which the endings -é, -ás, -á, -emos, -éis, -án indicate that this tense was once formed with auxiliary verb. Here it is appropriate to recall the importance of stress and intonation for distinguishing forms: the form Futuro Simple de Subjuntivo is formed with the same, but only unstressed endings.
Varieties of synthetic languages
Previously, it was mainly said about synthetic languages of this type, where the main tool for shaping is inflection. It should be noted that such a strategy just requires the use of various functional words to clarify grammatical connections. For example, Russian word"house" has null ending, characteristic of both the nominative and accusative. Therefore, to demonstrate that "house" is not the subject, but the object of the action, the use of various prepositions is required.
In one inflection is not assigned a specific morphological meaning. The ending -a in Russian can express:
- nominative singular nouns of the 1st declension;
- Genitive singular nouns of the 2nd declension (and for animate ones also accusative);
- nominative plural some masculine and neuter nouns;
- feminine in the past tense of verbs.
But the ways of marking grammatical connections in synthetic languages are not limited to inflection. There are in which word forms are created by sequential attachment various suffixes and prefixes, which have only one grammatical meaning. For example, in Hungarian the suffix -nak- expresses only the meaning dative case, and -aren- is genitive in Basque.
Examples of synthetic languages
The most striking examples of the expression of grammatical connections using inflections can boast of Latin (especially the classical period), ancient Greek and Sanskrit. Some languages on this basis are distinguished as polysynthetic, where the use of function words and auxiliary verbs is practically not found. Such languages make up whole families, for example, Chukchi-Kamchatka or Eskimo-Aleut.
Separately, it should be said about the Slavic languages. The problem of classifying the Russian language as a synthetic or analytical type was mentioned above. Its development is characterized by a consistent blurring of the system of verb tenses (only the present, some forms of the past and future remained from Old Church Slavonic), while maintaining a branched system of declension of nominal parts of speech. Nevertheless, it can be said with a certain degree of certainty that the literary Russian language is synthetic. In some dialectisms, there is an expansion of analyticism, expressed in the formation of perfect forms of verb tenses (for example, "I have milked a cow" instead of "I have milked a cow", where the construction "at me" corresponds to the verb of possession "to have" used in the construction of perfect forms).
The same situation is observed in other Slavic languages with the exception of Bulgarian. It's the only one Slavic, in which the inflectional strategy of declension of nominal parts of speech disappeared and the article was formed. However, some tendencies towards the appearance of the article are observed in the Czech language, where demonstrative pronoun ten and its other gender forms preface the noun to indicate its notoriety to the listener.