Talk:Agglutinative language

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Contents

1 Article title 2 Examples! 2.1 Examples that illustrate the agglutinative structure 3 Number of Japanese irregular verbs 4 Irregular verbs in Turkish

Article title

Shouldn't this be agglutinative language? --Chuck Smith

-- Probably yes. 'Agglutinative language' language gives 800 hits in Google, while 'agglutinating language' only gives 200 hits. --HJH

Len I didn't miss that; but Wikipedia is not authoritative, I took the time to read the other hits Mintguy

Take the time to minor in Linguistics and learn about the various types of polysynthetic languages, like me. The error you are seeing on the web is the near-ubiquitous one of mistaking "agglutinative" for a synonym of "(poly)synthetic". It is not. (you might find the article on fusional language, skeletal as it is, rather instructive.) --User:LenBudney

I see that German is given as an example of an Agglutinative_language and also as an example of a fusional language. Which one is it? The text implies that if it's one then it can't be the other. Or can it? --Zoicon5

I see that each type also claims Esperanto as an example. -- Zoicon5

I've moved German and Esperanto to the back, saying 'and to a lesser extent'. More seriously, I've changed 'polysynthetic' to 'synthetic'. The term 'polysynthetic' refers to languages like those in North America that incorporate both the noun and verb into a single phonological word. The term 'agglutinative' covers two things: (a) multiple morphemes in the same word, and that's in core inflection of nouns and verbs (so a few English examples like kind+ness+es don't count); and (b) each morpheme phonetically separate, as opposed to other synthetic types. In fact, the core morphology of German is fusional: -es is gen.+sg.+m/n., so it really shouldn't be in the list. Gritchka 17:43 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)~

Examples!

Could we have some examples of this type of formation in action? I've read the article, but I still have only a vague idea of what this is!

Here are some examples in some languages I'm familiar with:

ka:?a:?a:kó:khá:r?a (Wichita)

(ka:? - a:? - a: - ki - wakhahr - ?a) (six morphemes)

intensive - quotative - third person subject and preverb - aorist - patient is an activity - come

long ago it came to pass that... (used to start a story) (Wichita is basically agglutinative; the differences between the morphemic gloss and the surface form are governed by a few basic phonological rules.)

aqh^jazbacr'aghawdæt^waaylafaq'ayt'madaqh (Ubykh)

(a-qh^ja-z-bacr'a-gha-w-dæ-t^w-aay-la-fa-q'a-yt'-ma-da-qh) (16 morphemes)

them - benefactive - me - under - ablative - you -causative - take - again - exhaustive - able - past - imperfective - negative - conditional - optative

if only you had not been able to make him take it all out from under me again for them

thefamouseccles 00:37 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'd like to give an example from Turkish, a word primary-school kids like to play on:

Çekoslovakyalılaştırabildiklerimizden misiniz?

This is one word, and one sentence, actually, meaning: are you among the ones whom we were able to turn into a Czechlovakian? (politically outdated, though)

Çekoslovakyalı[Czechoslovakian] + -laştır[turn into] + abil[ability = to be able to] + -dik[past tense = were] + -ler[plural suffix for the object -> so that it becomes first person plural; "we" namely] + -imiz[this doesn't mean "we" actually, but indicates that the object performing the action is "we", first person plural] + -den[among] + -mi[question suffix] + -siniz [are you? -> makes the subject the second person plural]

Examples that illustrate the agglutinative structure

It would be very helpful to include an example from each language which shows the full structure of its agglutination. By this I mean which agglutinative morphemes can appear in which positions.

It would be nice to have one example for a verb, and one example for a noun.

Some languages are regularly stated to be agglutinative but their agglutinative properties are seldom discussed. Japanese and Korean fall into this category. Illustrative examples for them will be valuable.

Some languages can be analysed in multiple ways with one way being more accepted, or different ways accepted by different groups. For instance, Hungarian is considered to have cases by some, and considered to have nouns built from individual particles by others. Japanese verbs are usually described as conjugating but the conjugations can be broken down into functional pieces. Japanese nouns are pronounced with their following particles attached but described in terms of the particles being separate words. It would be good to show the more agglutinating analysis here, perhaps with a note. — Hippietrail 13:38, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The postposed particles in Japanese are indeed part of the same phonological word, but they're not agglutinative morphemes; they're clitics. Note also that the copula is also a clitic (I mean anything like da, desu, deshou, etc.). I don't know enough Japanese to propose good examples, but I guess I can chip in with tabetakunakatta: tabe- "eat", -ta- "want", -ku adverbial operator, -na(i) negative, -katta past tense mark for adjectives = "did not want to eat". --Pablo D. Flores 11:03, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the example. I have the Finnish structure for nouns, verbs, and participles downstairs. I think I have the Basque structure too. I'll try to post them soon.

A couple of questions, am I right in thinking the difference between the enclitics and agglutinative morphemes is that the latter would only be able to join specific word classes (nouns or verbs but not both) whereas the former can join onto any kind of word whatsoever?

Also, can clitics be added in arbitrary order or does the degree of freedom vary by word class and by language? Do you know the answer at least in the case of Japanese? — Hippietrail 12:18, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A clitic is more or less defined as a morpheme that behaves syntactically like a separate word, and phonologically like a bound morpheme. That is, a clitic appears in places where you would expect a separate word, but sounds as if it were an affix (which it isn't). An affix is applied to specific word classes, as you say, while a clitic may be attached anywhere (well not anywhere, but the distribution rules are not as rigid). For example, the articles in Romance languages are proclitic: Spanish un beso "a kiss" is phonologically one word. But you can add an adjective in between: un apasionado beso "a passionate kiss". The article just cliticizes on the first word it encounters.

As for the rules: I'm sure no language allows clitics complete freedom of order (it's the same with words). In Japanese the clitics are the postpositions, the copula and some other particles, and they all come after the rest. They're not distributed arbitrarily. Suppose this (clumsy) example:

Kore wa anata no desu ka?

this (TOPIC) you (GENITIVE) (COPULA) (QUESTION)

Phonologically those are two words: kore-wa and anata-no-desu-ka. Neither can be ordered differently: the genitive always follows the noun/pronoun, the copula or the verb comes at the end in declarative sentences, and if the sentence is an interrogative one, you add ka after the verb. --Pablo D. Flores 12:11, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Number of Japanese irregular verbs

At the bottom of the page, there is the statement:

"Agglutinative languages tend to have a high rate of affixes/morphemes per word, and to be very regular. For example, Japanese has only two irregular verbs, and Turkish has only one."

I believe that there are three irregular Japanese verbs:

"suru" (to do) has the stem form "shi" -- if it was regular, it would be "su" or "suri"

"kuru" (to come) has the stem form "ki" -- if it was regular, it would be "ku" or "kuri"

"iku" (to go) has the gerund form "itte" -- if it was regular, it would be "iite"

I suspect that the two noted verbs in the article are "kuru" and "suru". Is there any reason that "iku" was left out?

-Seth

Some analyses of Japanese grammar don't consider "suru" to be a true verb but rather an "auxiliary". So maybe that writer was only considering "kuru" and "iku" — Hippietrail 22:59, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

Can it really be said that Japanese has only 3 irregular verbs? That is based on the idea that the verb です - basically, "to be" - is not a verb, rather a thing that is added to end of a sentence that lacks a verb, even though it acts like a verb. An IRREGULAR verb. And there are also several other verbs formed from a noun + one of those three irregular verbs, and so they too are irregular. elvenscout742 22:55, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I concur that some consideration should be given for what to do with the Japanese ending copula da / desu. However, I would not go so far as to include compound verbs formed by nouns + irregulars. On the one hand, the list gets ridiculously long pretty quickly, and on the other, they are after all compounds. Though 勉強する benkyō suru translates roughly as "study" or "to study" in English, the basic morphemes in Japanese are quite separate and distinct -- benkyō, and suru. One may as well advocate lumping together similar constructs in English as single verbs -- but then "dothelaundry" doesn't seem to work very well.  :) --- Eirikr 05:42, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Irregular verbs in Turkish

It says there is only one. i'm a native turkish speaker but i haven't heard of it yet. could somebody tell me?

I just had a quick look with Google and found this site (http://www.turkishlanguage.co.uk/aoristverblst.htm) which lists at least 14 irregular verbs in Turkish! This seems to be restricted to the aorist. Here is another site (http://beat.cwru.edu/sfa/turkce/grammarLesson.html?lfn=toBe.htm) which goes into more detail about to be, which is probably what the writer on this article had in mind. — Hippietrail 07:14, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have been to the website, but I do not see why they are irregular (the site which lists the supposedly 14 irregular verbs). I have consulted with over 5 teachers of Turkish in the United States and Europe, and they claim that Turkish does not have any irregular verbs. That is why I corrected the article, saying that Turkish has no irregular verbs.