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The Alurhsa Word for Constructed: Creativity in both scripts and languages
 
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Standadrdized/Reinvented Neiriko
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yssida



Joined: 16 Sep 2007
Posts: 253
Location: sa jaan lang

PostPosted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 1:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Synthetic is adding morphemes together. This is a lot like Esperanto.

Example:

homojn - people/men (accusative)
hom - root for a person
o- denotes a noun
j- denotes a plural
n-accusative

Basically, you glue them together. In a fusional language, those three endings would probably be handled by just one ending.
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eldin raigmore
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Joined: 03 May 2007
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 6:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not that that's wrong; but it's still possible to be misled.

There are two axes along which languages are typologized according to their morphological habits.
One is "synthetic" vs "isolating"; the other is "agglutinating" vs "fusional".

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Count the average number of morphemes per word. If all words are monomorphemic the language is purely isolating. In general if this average is less than two you can call the language "isolating".

If the average number of morphemes per word is more than four the language is very, very synthetic, and will probably qualify as "polysynthetic".

In between -- more than two but less than four -- you'd still say the language is "synthetic", but probably not "polysynthetic".

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The "agglutinating" vs "fusional" dimension doesn't apply to purely isolating languages; but it does apply to languages that are even a little bit synthesizing.

Now, count the average number of meanings per morpheme.

If each morpheme has just one meaning -- for instance, nominative, or definite, or masculine, or singular, or third-person -- or progressive, or indicative, or affirmative, or present, or active -- the language is "agglutinating".

If a single morpheme has more than one meaning -- for instance, nominative definite masculine, or masculine singular third-person, or progressive indicative affirmative, or affirmative present active -- the language is "fusional".

So if the average number of meanings per morpheme is, say, less than 1.5, you would call the language "agglutinating"; if it's more than 1.5, you would call the language "fusional".

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That's a 19th-century typology; beginning about in the 1950s or 1960s people began to typologize more on the basis of syntax than of morphology.
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langover94



Joined: 21 Aug 2007
Posts: 509
Location: USA

PostPosted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 4:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

omg thank you!!!!

my conlang Danslag would then probably be isolating and agglutinating.

one question: does gender count as a morpheme?

another question: what would english be considered? or are the categories only for conlangs?
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yssida



Joined: 16 Sep 2007
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Location: sa jaan lang

PostPosted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 4:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think English might be nearer to the isolating end but still a bit fusional. That's just me, though.
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yssida



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PostPosted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 4:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I mean, a bit synthetic, sorry.

And, I think it applies to human languages in general.
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eldin raigmore
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 1:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

yssida wrote:
I think English might be nearer to the isolating end but still a bit fusional. That's just me, though.
That's what people usually say.
yssida wrote:
I mean, a bit synthetic, sorry.
That too.
yssida wrote:
And, I think it applies to human languages in general.
Yes. However there are some who doubt its usefulness in real life. But ideas remain useful for conlangers even if they turn out not to be as useful as was hoped for professional linguisticians of natlangs.
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