agglutinative language
- noun
- /əˈɡluːtɪnətɪv ˈlæŋɡwɪdʒ/
- Specialized
:
lengua aglutinante
- It's also an agglutinative language, which means it builds phrases by using suffixes and infixes instead of using prepositions and other 'helper' words, so the words get really long.
Examples
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Japanese is known as an agglutinative language because it combines smaller units of meaning to create longer words.
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During this period, Mesopotamian writing became intelligible; the language was Sumerian, an agglutinative language of unknown origin.
Academic text (1993) -
In Finnish, an agglutinative language, words are formed by adding various affixes to a root word, changing its meaning and grammatical function.
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Turkish is an agglutinative language, where suffixes are attached to base words to express different grammatical nuances.
How Agglutinative
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
1
8.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun phrase is a direct composition of the adjective 'agglutinative' (describing a morphological type) and the noun 'language', so its meaning — a language that forms words by agglutinating morphemes — follows straightforwardly from the constituents. This adjective+noun pattern is compositional and conceptually transparent (though the adjective is technical), so a learner who knows both words can predict the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Agglutinative language paints a picture of a root word with many small endings stuck on like beads on a string. Each small part adds one bit of meaning or grammar, so the phrase means 'words made by joining separate parts together, each with its own meaning'.