Re: Branching typologies

> Date:         Fri, 28 Sep 2001 12:15:36 -0700
> From: Frank George Valoczy <valoczy@...>
>
> > In a message dated 9/28/01 1:54:06 AM, thorinn@DIKU.DK writes:
> > << Inuit languages are called polysynthetic, even though the structure is
> > quite simple, in the sense that the meaning is built up front to back,
> > each suffix modifying the meaning of the stem so far, with a single
> > syncretic tense/number/agreement morpheme at the end. (The phonemic
> > rules for the joining of morphemes can be quite complex, though). >>
>
> Hm. So is Hungarian, with things like "megverethetnelek" derived from the
> verb "ver-", "beat", polysynthetic?
No. I chose Inuit as an example because it's a polysynthetic language
with a relatively simple word structure, to show that they don't all
have noun incorporation and infixes for the social status of the
speaker, or whatever. That doesn't meant that all languages with a
similar structure are polysynthetic.

As far as I know, Hungarian does not change the various morphemes much
when tacking them together (except perhaps for vowel harmony), and
that's a more agglutinative trait.

But a more decisive difference is that AFAIK, the list of affixes in
Hungarian is short and stable --- they are in a sense syntactical
items. On the other hand, about half of an Inuit dictionary is taken
up by the affixes --- they have to be part of the speakers' lexicon,
and the class is open to expansion.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)

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