Comparing languages: Stage 3, morphemes
Another way of comparing language types is to classify them in
terms of how they handle morphemes
For example, in some languages almost every word can be broken down
into a number of discrete parts. In English, for example, we
can break down a word like uninteresting into 3 distinct elements:
- un-: a prefix denoting an opposite meaning (that's changing meaning)
- interest: the base verb form
- -ing: the suffix denoting a participle adjective (that's changing word class)
In the same way, a word such as bookkeeper also comes in three parts:
- book
- keep
- -er
The first two go together as a compound and the last is a derivational suffix denoting a person who does something.
The key point here is the word : morpheme ratio.
Some languages have a low ratio (with each word standing alone and
indivisible) and some have a higher ratio (with words made up of a
range of meaning- and form-changing morphemes).
More on that in a minute.
In this exercise, we have a classification (the technical words on
the left), an example of what's happening and finally a column for
you to think about a definition of the technical term. Look at
the first two columns and think about what the definition might be
before you click on the
to reveal some ideas. At the end, there are two more familiar categories for you to identify. |
TERM | Example | Definition |
AGGLUTINATING OR AGGLUTINATIVE
LANGUAGES |
English can do this in words like
policewoman. German and Turkish do it far more. In German, for example, the term Hauptbahnhofgastsätte is made up of main + line + yard + guest + place and means mainline station restaurant. |
Languages in which
various affixes may be added to the stem of a word to add to
its meaning or to show grammatical function in a clear
one-to-one relationship between affix and meaning.
(Turkish, Finnish, many African and South Indian languages) These languages have a high or very high word to morpheme ratio |
ISOLATING, ANALYTIC OR ROOT LANGUAGES |
In these languages each word stands alone with no affixes of any kind.
In English, for example, He must go now, has four
words and four morphemes. Most Chinese languages are like this with no endings to show tense, person, number etc. |
Languages in which word forms do not change, and in which grammatical
functions are shown by word order and the use of
function words.
(Chinese, Vietnamese, English, Scandinavian languages [not Finnish]) These languages have a low or very low word to morpheme ratio |
POLYSYNTHETIC OR
INCORPORATING LANGUAGES |
English is not one of these languages. However, Chukchi: (a Siberian language) is. In Chuckchi, the word Təmeyŋəlevtpəγtərkən can be broken down into: subject + great-head-hurt + present tense or I have a bad headache. |
Languages in which
words may contain a mixture of affixes and inflexions.
(Eskimo-Aleut, some Australian and South American languages)
These languages have a very high word to morpheme ratio |
INFLECTING,
SYNTHETIC OR FUSIONAL LANGUAGES |
Latin, French, Italian and other
Romance languages fall into this category and Germanic and
Slavic languages also exhibit the features. For example, nous avons voulu in French (we wanted) shows endings for number, person and tense. The -ons morpheme denotes both first person and plural simultaneously. The equivalent for I wanted is j'ai voulu. In Latin, the word bonus (good) includes markers for masculine gender + subject (nominative) case + singular number, all in the -us ending. |
Languages in which grammatical relationships are
shown by changing the internal structure of the words,
typically by the use of endings which may express
several grammatical meanings at once.
(French, Spanish, Czech, German etc.) These languages have a high word to morpheme ratio |
STRESS-TIMED LANGUAGES |
If we say a sentence such as He went to London, the time it takes to utter the word London and the time to utter the rest of the sentence are more or less the same. This means that words like to are reduced to 't'. |
Languages in which it takes varying lengths of time
to utter the same numbers of syllables.
(English, Dutch, Scandinavian languages) |
SYLLABLE-TIMED LANGUAGES |
If you say I went to London in French, it is Je suis allé à Londres and in this, all the words carry more or less equal stress and take the same time to utter. |
Languages in which all syllables take approximately
the same amount of time to utter.
(Greek, Italian, French) |
We should recognise two important facts about the last two rows:
- This is not an either-or, on-off categorisation. Languages exist on a cline from heavily stress timed to heavily syllable timed and most fall between the extremes so at best we should describe languages in terms of tendencies.
- There are other forms of timing (Mora, for example) which are not mentioned here.
Some explanation |
When there are two or three terms to describe a language type, the first one given is the most common.
There is cline from one end (highly inflected or synthetic
languages) to the other end (completely isolating languages) with
most falling somewhere in between as English does. For more,
see
the guide to
morphology (new tab). The cline looks like this:
These are tendencies in languages, not absolute types. English, for example, can show some agglutinating tendencies (e.g., bookkeeper) when words are simply added together, but also shows isolating tendencies by having few inflexions (e.g., I must go home). It can also, however, use inflexions (such as the -s on the third person present simple verbs, the -s to show plurals or the -ed to show past tense) but it doesn't do this with anything like the enthusiasm of highly inflected languages such as French.
Before you go any further, try a test
on the categories above to see if you have remembered them.
Use the Back button to return.
So what? |
You may well ask.
Adults in particular will tend to assume that a language they are
learning will resemble one(s) they already speak so will actively
look for similarities to help them. Thus, speakers of
inflecting languages will have few problems remembering to add -ed
for a past tense but those from isolating language backgrounds (such
as Thai or the Chinese languages) may well have problems simply
because they don't necessarily see the need for such
things. Who is likely to have less or more difficulty with a
word like unselfconsciousness?
The more different certain areas are, the more our learners need exposure to forms.
This CAN influence the ways in which we run our teaching:
- The amount of practice.
- The construction of the course.
- The way we test.
Another way of looking at language differences
Look at this wheel. English is at the centre and radiating
lines show how much difference there is between English and, in this
example, Russian (denoted by the R). Can you put the other languages on the lines? If you want to do this on paper, right click and save the image then print it out. |
By the way, Spelling here refers to how closely the rules (doubling letters etc.) resemble those in English and 'Orthography' refers to the use of the alphabet, accents, special characters and so on.
(After Crystal, 1987, The Cambridge
Encyclopedia of Language, p371)
Done? OK. Click here to go to the final Stage 4.
Index | Stage 1 | Stage 2 | Stage 3 | Stage 4 | The lesson |