polysynthetic (adj.)

A term which characterizes a type of LANGUAGE sometimes distinguished in COMPARATIVE LINGUISTICS using STRUCTURAL (as opposed to DIACHRONIC) criteria, and focusing on the characteristics of the WORD: ‘polysynthetic’ or ‘incorporating’ languages demonstrate MORPHOLOGICALLY complex, long word forms, as in the constructions typical of many American Indian languages, and encountered occasionally in English, in coinages such as anti/dis/establish/ment/arian/ism/s. The term is opposed to SYNTHETIC and ANALYTIC type languages. Some linguists, however, prefer to see such constructions handled as a complex of AGGLUTINATIVE and FUSIONAL characteristics, and do not regard this category of language as typologically distinct. As always in such classifications, the categories are not clear-cut: different languages will display the characteristic of polysynthesis to a greater or lesser degree. The polysynthesis parameter represents the analysis of polysynthetic forms as a system of predicate– argument relationships.