Questions tagged [polysynthesis]

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How a learner of a polysynthetic language like Arapaho would use an electronic or printed dictionary?

Along the lines of this question about agglutinative dictionaries, I just finished reading through the paper "Creating lexical resources for polysynthetic languages — the case of Arapaho, by ...
Lance's user avatar
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14 votes
3 answers
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How to distinguish a polysynthetic language from other languages? When is something a word?

For example, the probably most quoted sentence in a polysynthetic langauge (from Yupik): tuntussuqatarniksaitengqiggtuq: tuntu- ssur- qatar- ni- ksaite- ngqiggte- uq reindeer- hunt- FUT- ...
Silvus's user avatar
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6 votes
3 answers
308 views

How frequent are different morphosyntactic types?

I started wondering what share of all world's languages are polysynthetic (on any practical definition of polysynthetic, i.e. the prototype approach, the macroparameter theory (Baker 1995), etc.), and ...
Ivan Kapitonov's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
759 views

How do formal theories analyse the syntax of polysynthetic languages?

How is syntax of polysynthetic languages (e.g. Inuktitut, Mohawk) represented in formal theories of syntax? In many cases, a sentence consists of only one or two words so the syntax tree is rather ...
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3 votes
2 answers
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What is the distinction between agglutinative languages and polysynthetic ones?

My understanding of morphology is that a word is taken and many different words are glued to it. Is not this true for both agglutinative and polysynthetic languages? Or what is the finer level of ...
meireikei's user avatar
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