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28-518: Ventureño is, like its sister Chumashan languages, a polysynthetic language, having larger words composed of a number of morphemes. Ventureño has separate word classes of verb , noun , and oblique adjunct; with no separate word class for adjectives or adpositions. Nouns and verbs are often heavily affixed (mostly prefixed ) in Ventureño, affixing being a way to denote those meanings often conveyed by separate words in more analytic languages . Verbs play

56-646: A glottal stop [ʔ] and for denoting ejectives. Glottalized sonorants [m̰, n̰, w̰, j̰] are written with a combining apostrophe over the symbol ⟨m̓⟩ , ⟨n̓⟩ , ⟨w̓⟩ , ⟨y̓⟩ . This transcription is in keeping with most current Chumashists (such as Wash below) except that alveolar affricates ( [t͡s] ) are written as ⟨ts⟩ in Ventureño, where other Chumashists write them as ⟨c⟩ . Likewise, Ventureño writes postalveolar affricates ( [t͡ʃ] ) as ⟨tš⟩ , where other Chumashists write this sound as ⟨č⟩ . Chumash morphology

84-710: A quaternary numeral system . The numbers 1–16 exhibit certain characteristics which are different from the method of counting from 17 to 32. In all places, however, the multiple of 4 usually has a unique term. Ventureño Chumash has the most complete, native Chumash system of numbers on record. Polysynthetic In linguistic typology , polysynthetic languages , formerly holophrastic languages , are highly synthetic languages , i.e., languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able to stand alone). They are very highly inflected languages. Polysynthetic languages typically have long "sentence-words" such as

112-551: A defining feature of all indigenous languages of the Americas . This characterization was shown to be wrong, since many indigenous American languages are not polysynthetic, but it is a fact that polysynthetic languages are not evenly distributed throughout the world, but more frequent in the Americas , Australia , Siberia , and New Guinea ; however, there are also examples in other areas. The concept became part of linguistic typology with

140-399: A fierce headache.' From Classical Ainu of Japan, another polysynthetic, incorporating, and agglutinating language: ウサオプㇲペ Usaopuspe アエヤィコツ゚ィマシラㇺスィパ aeyaykotuymasiramsuypa ウサオプㇲペ アエヤィコツ゚ィマシラㇺスィパ Usaopuspe aeyaykotuymasiramsuypa Synthetic language A synthetic language is a language that is statistically characterized by a higher morpheme-to-word ratio. Rule-wise,

168-432: A fusional subtype) and oligosynthetic languages (only found in constructed languages ). In contrast, rule-wise, the analytic languages rely more on auxiliary verbs and word order to denote syntactic relationship between the words. Adding morphemes to a root word is used in inflection to convey a grammatical property of the word, such as denoting a subject or an object. Combining two or more morphemes into one word

196-584: A high degree of morphological synthesis, and which tend to form long complex words containing long strings of morphemes , including derivational and inflectional morphemes. A language then is "synthetic" or "synthesizing" if it tends to have more than one morpheme per word, and a polysynthetic language is a language that has "many" morphemes per word. The concept was originally used only to describe those languages that can form long words that correspond to an entire sentence in English or other Indo-European languages , and

224-413: A primary role in Ventureño with utterances often composed only of a verb with clitics. Chumash word order is VSO / VOS , or VS/ VO . Ventureño has a similar phonemic inventory to other Chumash languages. Ventureño consists of 30 consonants and 6 vowels. Ventureño consists of a regular 5-vowel inventory with a sixth vowel transcribed as ⟨ ə ⟩. In Barbareño transcriptions, ⟨ ɨ ⟩

252-531: A second person singular object). Many polysynthetic languages combine these two strategies, and also have ways of inflecting verbs for concepts normally encoded by adverbs or adjectives in Indo-European languages. In this way highly complex words can be formed, for example the Yupik word tuntussuqatarniksaitengqiggtuq which means "He had not yet said again that he was going to hunt reindeer." The word consists of

280-460: A spectrum; that is, a single word in a given language may exhibit varying degrees of both of them simultaneously. Similarly, some words may have derivational morphology while others have relational morphology. In derivational synthesis , morphemes of different types ( nouns , verbs , affixes , etc.) are joined to create new words. That is, in general, the morphemes being combined are more concrete units of meaning. The morphemes being synthesized in

308-400: A synthetic language is characterized by denoting syntactic relationship between the words via inflection and agglutination , dividing them into fusional or agglutinating subtypes of word synthesis. Further divisions include polysynthetic languages (most of them belonging to an agglutinative subtype, although Navajo and other Athabaskan languages are often classified as belonging to

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336-564: Is complicated by the fact that morpheme and word boundaries are not always clear cut, and languages may be highly synthetic in one area but less synthetic in other areas (e.g., verbs and nouns in Southern Athabaskan languages or Inuit languages ). Many polysynthetic languages display complex evidentiality and/or mirativity systems in their verbs . The term was invented by Peter Stephen Du Ponceau , who considered polysynthesis, as characterized by sentence words and noun incorporation,

364-520: Is composed of the Greek roots poly meaning "many" and synthesis meaning "placing together". In linguistics a word is defined as a unit of meaning that can stand alone in a sentence, and which can be uttered in isolation. Words may be simple, consisting of a single unit of meaning, or they can be complex, formed by combining many small units of meaning, called morphemes . In a general non-theoretical sense polysynthetic languages are those languages that have

392-639: Is fairly polysynthetic . This applies especially to the verbs of the language, which has over 15 distinct morphological slots (when counting nominalized verbs). This is illustrated in the table below by the nominalized verb meaning "your wanting to make fun of us". lo- DEM - si- ART - p- 2 - ʔal- NZ - suya- DES - su- CAUS - qoniš make fun of -pi - APL . LOC -iyiyuw - 1PL . REDUP lo- si- p- ʔal- suya- su- qoniš -pi -iyiyuw DEM- ART- 2- NZ- DES- CAUS- {make fun of} -APL.LOC -1PL.REDUP "your wanting to make fun of us" The Chumash languages exhibit

420-463: Is used in agglutinating languages , instead. For example, the word fast , if inflectionally combined with er to form the word faster , remains an adjective, while the word teach derivatively combined with er to form the word teacher ceases to be a verb. Some linguists consider relational morphology to be a type of derivational morphology, which may complicate the classification. Derivational and relational morphology represent opposite ends of

448-412: Is used. It is not known whether these two phones are the same in both languages (and the difference in transcription merely one of convention), or whether the sounds were in fact different enough for Harrington to use different symbols. Ventureño has been written in several different ways by different linguists. John Peabody Harrington, who compiled most of the data on Ventureño, used a modified version of

476-459: Is usually only marked for agreement with the subject (e.g. Spanish hablo "I speak" where the -o ending marks agreement with the first person singular subject), but in many languages verbs also agree with the object (e.g. the Kiswahili word nakupenda "I love you" where the n- prefix marks agreement with the first person singular subject and the ku- prefix marks agreement with

504-556: The International Phonetic Alphabet . Harrington differed from the International Phonetic Alphabet in the following symbols: a kappa ⟨к⟩ (small-cap 'k') for [q] , a ⟨q⟩ for [x] , a slanted bar ⟨ł⟩ for [ɬ] , a reversed apostrophe ⟨‘⟩ for aspiration, and a right-turned (standard) apostrophe ⟨’⟩ for a glottal stop (this symbol

532-423: The Yupik word tuntussuqatarniksaitengqiggtuq . tuntu reindeer -ssur -hunt -qatar - FUT -ni -say -ksaite - NEG -ngqiggte -again -uq - 3SG . IND tuntu -ssur -qatar -ni -ksaite -ngqiggte -uq reindeer -hunt -FUT -say -NEG -again -3SG.IND "He had not yet said again that he was going to hunt reindeer." Except for the morpheme tuntu "reindeer", none of

560-475: The following examples either belong to a particular grammatical class – such as adjectives , nouns, or prepositions – or are affixes that usually have a single form and meaning: Aufsicht supervision -s-   Rat council -s-   Mitglieder members Versammlung assembly Aufsicht -s- Rat -s- Mitglieder Versammlung supervision {} council {} members assembly "Meeting of members of

588-586: The head noun with agreement morphemes. There are some dependent-marking languages that may be considered to be polysynthetic because they use case stacking to achieve similar effects, and very long words. An example from Chukchi , a polysynthetic, incorporating , and agglutinating language of Russia which also has grammatical cases unlike the majority of incorporating polysynthetic languages: t- 1S . SUBJ meyŋ- great levt- head pəγt- hurt rkən 1S . PRES t- meyŋ- levt- pəγt- rkən 1S.SUBJ great head hurt 1S.PRES 'I have

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616-428: The morphemes tuntu-ssur-qatar-ni-ksaite-ngqiggte-uq with the meanings, reindeer-hunt-future-say-negation-again-third.person.singular.indicative, and except for the morpheme tuntu "reindeer", none of the other morphemes can appear in isolation. Another way to achieve a high degree of synthesis is when languages can form compound words by incorporation of nouns, so that entire words can be incorporated into

644-435: The other morphemes can appear in isolation. Whereas isolating languages have a low morpheme-to-word ratio, polysynthetic languages have a very high ratio. There is no generally agreed upon definition of polysynthesis. Generally polysynthetic languages have polypersonal agreement , although some agglutinative languages that are not polysynthetic, such as Basque , Hungarian and Georgian , also have it. Some authors apply

672-422: The term polysynthetic to languages with high morpheme-to-word ratios, but others use it for languages that are highly head-marking , or those that frequently use noun incorporation . Polysynthetic languages can be agglutinative or fusional depending on whether they encode one or multiple grammatical categories per affix . At the same time, the question of whether to call a particular language polysynthetic

700-441: The verb word, as baby is incorporated in the English verb babysit . Another common feature of polysynthetic languages is a tendency to use head marking as a means of syntactic cohesion. This means that many polysynthetic languages mark grammatical relations between verbs and their constituents by indexing the constituents on the verb with agreement morphemes, and the relation between noun phrases and their constituents by marking

728-406: The word is still most frequently used to refer to such "sentence words". Often polysynthesis is achieved when languages have extensive agreement between elements verbs and their arguments so that the verb is marked for agreement with the grammatical subject and object. In this way a single word can encode information about all the elements in a transitive clause. In Indo-European languages the verb

756-483: The work of Edward Sapir , who used it as one of his basic typological categories. Recently, Mark C. Baker has suggested formally defining polysynthesis as a macro-parameter within Noam Chomsky 's principles and parameters theory of grammar. Other linguists question the basic utility of the concept for typology since it covers many separate morphological types that have little else in common. The word "polysynthesis"

784-470: Was also used for ejectives and glottalized sonorants). The Barbareño/Ventureño Band of Mission Indians has adopted an Americanist form of transcription for Ventureño based on the work done by Harrington: ⟨š⟩ for [ʃ] , ⟨ł⟩ for [ɬ] , ⟨x⟩ for [x] , ⟨ʰ⟩ for aspiration, ⟨y⟩ for [j] , and ⟨q⟩ for [q] . A standard apostrophe ⟨’⟩ continues to be used for

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