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Morphological Typology

This document discusses morphological typology and classifies languages based on their morphology. It defines two indices: the index of synthesis, which measures the amount of affixation in a language, and the index of fusion, which indicates how easily morphemes can be segmented. Languages fall on a continuum between isolating and synthetic. Isolating languages have little affixation while synthetic languages have more affixation and can be further divided into agglutinative or fusional depending on how easily morphemes can be segmented. The document provides examples and characteristics of isolating languages and discusses how morphological type may change over time through processes like semantic and phonological reduction or morphological fusion.

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Gregory Marchan
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323 views8 pages

Morphological Typology

This document discusses morphological typology and classifies languages based on their morphology. It defines two indices: the index of synthesis, which measures the amount of affixation in a language, and the index of fusion, which indicates how easily morphemes can be segmented. Languages fall on a continuum between isolating and synthetic. Isolating languages have little affixation while synthetic languages have more affixation and can be further divided into agglutinative or fusional depending on how easily morphemes can be segmented. The document provides examples and characteristics of isolating languages and discusses how morphological type may change over time through processes like semantic and phonological reduction or morphological fusion.

Uploaded by

Gregory Marchan
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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MORPHOLOGICAL

TYPOLOGY
Languages as Morphological Types
Index of Synthesis Index of fusion
Amount of affixation that Label the ease with which
occurs in an individual individual morphemes can be
language. segmented from others.

ISOLATING SYNTHETIC

AGGLUTINATIVE FUSIONAL
Examples of isolating languages
Tä zài túshüguän kän bào
He at library read newspaper
He is at the library reading a news paper

Xiäo Huáng kuái yào lài le


Little Haung fast will come ASP
Little Haung is coming
CHARACTERISTICS OF ISOLATING LANGUAGES
 Complex tonal systems
 yi (high tone) “clothes”
 yi (rising tone) “to suspect”
 yi (falling then rising tone) “chair”
 yi (falling tone) “meaning”
 (Adapted from Li and Thompson 1981)

 The use of serial verbs

may faay kon ma rop caw haw ku


bamboo bend come stroke head give I
The bamboo bends down to stroke my head for me.
(From Gedney 1991, xxx)

 Rigid word order


SYNTHETIC LANGUAGES

AGGLUTINATIVE FUSIONAL

The boundaries The boundaries


between morphemes between morphemes
are easily segmentable are hard to determine

nu-khniñani hme-mudaka-na -ka bi babuka Varela abi


1P-people 3P -kill -PFV-SEQ you around Varela with
My people shot at you because of Varela.
(Data from Aikhenwald 1995)
Example of fusional language
 Historical change in Morphological Type
Semantic and Phonological
Reduction
Isolating agglutinative

fusional
Morphological Fusion

Reduction
isolating agglutinative

fusional

Morphological Loss Morphological Fusion

Reduction
isolating agglutinative
Types of Morphological Linkage between
Constituents

Government versus Agreement

 Head versus Dependent Marking

Head Marking and Constituent Order

Implications for Universals

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