Analytic and synthetic
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Martin Haspelmath
Abstract
It has long been observed that the modern European languages use more function words compared to earlier inflectional patterns, and this trend seems to have increased even further in creoles and other non-standard varieties. Here we make two arguments: First, we note that the terms synthetic and analytic are based on the “word” concept, which is not well-defined, so that these concepts cannot be used in a synchronic typology. But we can define a notion of “analyticization”, i.e. the replacement of an earlier pattern by a new, more elaborate pattern based on lexical or concrete items. Second, we observe that such analyticizations are particularly common in creole languages (when viewed as continuations of their lexifiers), and we hypothesize that this is due to the extra transparency that is required in situations with many adult second-language speakers.
Abstract
It has long been observed that the modern European languages use more function words compared to earlier inflectional patterns, and this trend seems to have increased even further in creoles and other non-standard varieties. Here we make two arguments: First, we note that the terms synthetic and analytic are based on the “word” concept, which is not well-defined, so that these concepts cannot be used in a synchronic typology. But we can define a notion of “analyticization”, i.e. the replacement of an earlier pattern by a new, more elaborate pattern based on lexical or concrete items. Second, we observe that such analyticizations are particularly common in creole languages (when viewed as continuations of their lexifiers), and we hypothesize that this is due to the extra transparency that is required in situations with many adult second-language speakers.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
-
Plenaries
- Analytic and synthetic 3
- A case for clustering speakers and linguistic variables 23
- Dynamics, variation and the brain 47
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Individual chapters
- Aggregate analysis of lexical variation in Galician 71
- Inter-individual variation among young children growing up in a bidialectal community 85
- The unruly dialect variant [a] 99
- Vowel raising and vowel deletion as sociolinguistic variables in Northern Greek 113
- Between local and standard varieties 125
- Syntactic doubling and variation 141
- Variation in style 157
- A corpus-based study of concessive conjunctions in three L1-varieties of English 173
- Variation in the structure of conjunctions in Luxembourgish German in the 19th century 185
- Geolinguistic documentation of multilingual areas 199
- Variation in Croatian 215
- Index 233
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
-
Plenaries
- Analytic and synthetic 3
- A case for clustering speakers and linguistic variables 23
- Dynamics, variation and the brain 47
-
Individual chapters
- Aggregate analysis of lexical variation in Galician 71
- Inter-individual variation among young children growing up in a bidialectal community 85
- The unruly dialect variant [a] 99
- Vowel raising and vowel deletion as sociolinguistic variables in Northern Greek 113
- Between local and standard varieties 125
- Syntactic doubling and variation 141
- Variation in style 157
- A corpus-based study of concessive conjunctions in three L1-varieties of English 173
- Variation in the structure of conjunctions in Luxembourgish German in the 19th century 185
- Geolinguistic documentation of multilingual areas 199
- Variation in Croatian 215
- Index 233
