[Lexicog] polysynthetic languages and dictionaries

[Kenneth C. Hill]

One of the most influential statements on polysynthetic languages is to be
found in Edward Sapir's Language (1921), where he says (p. 128) "An
analytic language is one that either does not combine concepts into single
words at all (Chinese) or does so economically (English, French). ... In a
synthetic language (Latin, Arabic, Finnish) the concepts cluster more
thickly, the words are more richly chambered, but there is a tendency, on
the whole, to keep the range of concrete significance in the single word
down to a moderate compass. A polysynthetic language, as its name implies,
is more than ordinarily synthetic. The elaboration of the word is extreme.
Concepts which we should never dream of treating in a subordinate fashion
are symbolized by derivational affixes or "symbolic" changes in the
radical element, while the more abstract notions, including the syntactic
relations, may also be conveyed by the word." Elsewhere (p. 123) he says
"... it is very difficult to assign all known languages to one or another
of these groups, the more so as they are not mutually exclusive. A
language may be both allutinative and inflective, or inflective and
polysynthetic and isolating ..." Thus, "poysynthetic" is, in origin, not a
term that presupposed any particular detail of language structure. Since
Sapir's time, people have tried to refine the term and when we discuss
"polysynthetic" languages in this lexicography list, we probably need to
be more explicit as to which features are of importance when we use the
term.

--Ken


	
		
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