Re: Agglutinativity Index (was: Re: What's a good isolating language to look at)

On 12/8/05, Thomas Hart Chappell <tomhchappell@...> wrote:
> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@G...> wrote:
> > John C. Wells, in _Lingvistikaj Aspektoj de Esperanto_,***
> > quotes the Greenberg article and calculates indexes
> > of synthesis and agglutinativity for Esperanto.
> Are these ratios and averages "by type" or "by token"?
>
> That is, for the agglutinativity index, do you count each morpheme
> just once, no matter how many times it occurs in the text; or do you
> weight more-frequently-used morphemes with more weight?
> (For the synthesis index, the question would be, do you count each
> _word_ just once, or weight more-frequently-used _words_ with more
> weight?)
I just re-read the passage in Wells 1989 and can't find anything
explicit one way or another.  Perhaps someone with
access to the original Greenberg 1960 article can answer this.
(I just realized no one has cited the Greenberg article's title etc
in full; Wells gives it as

A quantitative approach to the morphological typology
of languages.  _Int. J. American Linguistics_  26.3.178-194.

A quick Google search shows it has been reprinted in

Keith Denning & Suzanne Kemmer(eds.)
On Language: Selected Writings of Joseph H. Greenberg,
pp. 3-25.Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

> Are there languages with a "synthesis index" of more-than-4? (so
> that, in the "average" word, the "average" morpheme would be neither
> word-initial nor word-final.)
I suppose you mean natlangs -- we've already seen
at least one conlang with a synthesis index of >4 in
this thread.  I don't know of any sources for synthesis
index figures for natlangs other than the Greenberg
source already cited.

> Is there a language with a "synthesis index" of less-than-3 which,
> nevertheless, really deserves to be called "polysynthetic"?
Hm... maybe a language whose verbs incorporate subjects and objects,
but whose voice, tense, aspect, mood, evidentiality etc. are
marked with optional stand-alone particles?  I would still
hesitate to call such a language "polysynthetic", ignoring
the "poly-".   Wikipedia says:

Many, if not most, languages regarded as polysynthetic include
agreement with object arguments as well as subject arguments in
verbs. Incorporation (primarily noun incorporation) has been an
issue that has historically been confused with polysynthesis and
also used as a criterion for its definition. Incorporation refers to the
phenomenon where lexical morphemes (or lexemes) are combined
together to form a single word. Not all polysynthetic languages are
incorporating, and not all incorporating languages are polysynthetic.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysynthetic_language)

> Would a language whose "synthesis index" was less than 1.5, say, but
> whose "agglutinating index" was less than 0.5 (or whose "fusing
> index" was 2.0 or more), qualify as an "isolating fusing" language?
I wouldn't have any problem calling it that.

Maybe, whenever Jeffrey Henning has time
to update Langmaker again, it would be good
to add these agglutinativity and synthesis indices
to the conlang database.  & maybe these
should be added to the language template
on Wikipedia?  More likely, just add figures
to individual articles on languages for which
data in published sources is available.

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/gzb/gzb.htm
...Mind the gmail Reply-to: field

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