I would say that French and all the modern Romance languages save the East Romance languages would be synthetic tending towards analytic, rather than solely synthetic alone (as Latin was). While their verbal morphology is classically synthetic in nature, for nouns they seem more analytic than synthetic in nature, with really the only remainants of syntheticness left for them being inflection for number, and agreement with adjectives and determiners with respect to number and gender. This puts their noun/adjective/determiner morphology on par with that of "standard" continental North Germanic "standard" languages, except that those mark definiteness directly on nouns and have either an s-genitive clitic or a genitive case (depending on who you ask) for normal nouns, and remember that the continental North Germanic languages are generally thought of as some of the most analytic of the Germanic languages after English and Afrikaans. This also makes them definitely less synthetic noun-wise than German, the insular North Germanic languages, and some continental North Germanic languages/dialects such as Dalecarlian, somewhat less synthetic than Low Saxon, and theoretically less synthetic than Dutch. Hence, one cannot call the non-East Romance languages unambiguously purely synthetic across the board, but rather a combination of synthetic and analytic, just like how the Germanic languages can be considered as having gradations from primarily synthetic (Icelandic and Faroese) to primarily analytic (English and Afrikaans) combined with agglutination (which can be seen throughout all the Germanic languages, even though it is most pronounced and outwardly apparent in German).
Differences between French and English
It occurs to me that two characteristics from Adam's list don't really count for the purposes of true linguistic comparison: accents and capitalization.
These are merely spelling conventions in the written language.
These are merely spelling conventions in the written language.
<<It occurs to me that two characteristics from Adam's list don't really count for the purposes of true linguistic comparison: accents and capitalization.
These are merely spelling conventions in the written language.>>
Yes, very true. I noticed that too. But one hint--it's best not to raise such things with Adam, as it's a waste of time. He's not open to rational conversations about language.
These are merely spelling conventions in the written language.>>
Yes, very true. I noticed that too. But one hint--it's best not to raise such things with Adam, as it's a waste of time. He's not open to rational conversations about language.
Travis, you're exactly right about linguistic typology and classification for the Romance languages. It's really a continuum and few languages fall on the perfect extremes for grammatical typological classification. I didn't wanna get into the gory details so I just went with a simplistic description because all I was trying to point out then was that French is absolutely not polysynthetic by any means, but your comments are accurate about the Romance languages.
To Kirk & Travis,
Re: "Yeah, typologically French is classified as a synthetic language, along with the other Romance languages. "
Guys... You could say that literary (written) French is a synthetic language with some analytical tendencies like most modern western European languages but spoken French tends to be holophrastic ('polysynthetic' is perhaps a more modern term for this phenomenon)
The British linguist and mathematician Lancelot Hogben once wrote:
"Languages which are relatively holophrastic, such as French, offer greater difficulties for auditory recognition than more staccato languages like German."
Lancelot Hogben "Interglossa" Pelican Books
Mario Pei in his famous "Story of Language" also touches on this topic a little bit and talks about how French often has a tendency to run words together thus a sentence like Les grands hommes avaient annonce ("The great men have anounced) is pronounced more like laygrãzumzavaytãnônsay . Mario Pei also sites an example from the Oneida Indian language where a similar time where a similar phenomenon occurs. An entire sentence like "I am looking for a village" sounds like just one long word expelled in one breath.
In fact, all Native American languages from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego are essentially holophrastic from what I've read. However,whether holophrasticism in French is accidental in its evolution or a substratum influence from the earlier Basques and/or Celts is hard to tell.
It looks like both of you are trying to go strictly by the book on this one. Therefore, I can't say that you are exactly wrong however I like to try and bend the rules or think outside the box once in a while and read authors who do the same thing. That way it might be possible to discover some additional truths.
If you surf the internet (Google) under french holophrastic or french polysynthetic etc. you will find other references discussing the topic and making French at least a partial polysynthetic language.
--- Brennus
Re: "Yeah, typologically French is classified as a synthetic language, along with the other Romance languages. "
Guys... You could say that literary (written) French is a synthetic language with some analytical tendencies like most modern western European languages but spoken French tends to be holophrastic ('polysynthetic' is perhaps a more modern term for this phenomenon)
The British linguist and mathematician Lancelot Hogben once wrote:
"Languages which are relatively holophrastic, such as French, offer greater difficulties for auditory recognition than more staccato languages like German."
Lancelot Hogben "Interglossa" Pelican Books
Mario Pei in his famous "Story of Language" also touches on this topic a little bit and talks about how French often has a tendency to run words together thus a sentence like Les grands hommes avaient annonce ("The great men have anounced) is pronounced more like laygrãzumzavaytãnônsay . Mario Pei also sites an example from the Oneida Indian language where a similar time where a similar phenomenon occurs. An entire sentence like "I am looking for a village" sounds like just one long word expelled in one breath.
In fact, all Native American languages from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego are essentially holophrastic from what I've read. However,whether holophrasticism in French is accidental in its evolution or a substratum influence from the earlier Basques and/or Celts is hard to tell.
It looks like both of you are trying to go strictly by the book on this one. Therefore, I can't say that you are exactly wrong however I like to try and bend the rules or think outside the box once in a while and read authors who do the same thing. That way it might be possible to discover some additional truths.
If you surf the internet (Google) under french holophrastic or french polysynthetic etc. you will find other references discussing the topic and making French at least a partial polysynthetic language.
--- Brennus
I've heard the idea of French being polysynthetic (holophrasic) before, but the main matter is not the surface realization in actual speech, but rather the underlying morphology and syntax, actual superficial representation sound-wise aside. The matter is that French is not truly polysynthetic per se, but rather just highly cliticized while having an underlying syntax and morphology which is synthetic with analytic tendencies. Remember that in polysynthesis, syntactic words generally are composed of significant quantities of individual morphemes, which is not the same thing as cliticization, as in cliticization clitics are still syntactically separate words, despite being phonologically parts of their host words. This is why one cannot ascribe polysynthetic characteristics to French, or to English for that matter (considering that spoken NAE at least can be very significantly cliticized).
<<Mario Pei in his famous "Story of Language" also touches on this topic a little bit and talks about how French often has a tendency to run words together thus a sentence like Les grands hommes avaient annonce ("The great men have anounced) is pronounced more like laygrãzumzavaytãnônsay>>
Surface phonological representation of underlying phonemic forms has nothing to do with classifying a language as polysynthetic. It's how the language's grammar is structured. Whether we're talking about spoken or written French, French is nowhere near being polysynthetic (so it's not even partially polysynthetic). I've also read "Story of Language" and Mario Pei's description is accurate, but that doesn't have anything to do with polysynthesis.
Surface phonological representation of underlying phonemic forms has nothing to do with classifying a language as polysynthetic. It's how the language's grammar is structured. Whether we're talking about spoken or written French, French is nowhere near being polysynthetic (so it's not even partially polysynthetic). I've also read "Story of Language" and Mario Pei's description is accurate, but that doesn't have anything to do with polysynthesis.
Once again, You have to distinguish between the written and spoken forms of French which are somewhat different.
If I were to write Canadian French Je t'aime maman (I love you mother) as it sounds phonologically shtem:má:mã I would have something that was not unlike an Arawakian Indian language in South America and it could be analayzed as sh (a particle meaning 'I') t (a particle meaning 'you' as an object) em (a particle meaning 'love' with a hint of 'I') and má:mã (a noun meaning 'mother'). If I had told you that shtem:má:mã was Ashaninca Campa instead of Canadian French, you probably would have believed me at first blush.
If I were to write Canadian French Je t'aime maman (I love you mother) as it sounds phonologically shtem:má:mã I would have something that was not unlike an Arawakian Indian language in South America and it could be analayzed as sh (a particle meaning 'I') t (a particle meaning 'you' as an object) em (a particle meaning 'love' with a hint of 'I') and má:mã (a noun meaning 'mother'). If I had told you that shtem:má:mã was Ashaninca Campa instead of Canadian French, you probably would have believed me at first blush.
<<Once again, You have to distinguish between the written and spoken forms of French which are somewhat different.>>
I'm well aware of the large divide between written and spoken French. I studied French for a few years and have become aware of many of the phenomena present in conversational French.
<<If I were to write Canadian French Je t'aime maman (I love you mother) as it sounds phonologically shtem:má:mã I would have something that was not unlike an Arawakian Indian language in South America and it could be analayzed as sh (a particle meaning 'I') t (a particle meaning 'you' as an object) em (a particle meaning 'love' with a hint of 'I') and má:mã (a noun meaning 'mother'). If I had told you that shtem:má:mã was Ashaninca Campa instead of Canadian French, you probably would have believed me at first blush.>>
Once again, phonological leveling, assimilation, and/or reduction have NOTHING to do with a language's typological grammatical status! You're completely missing the point. I'm fully aware that that is a common phonological realization of "je t'aime maman" in conversational French. However, this is still wholly unrelated to French's grammatical status...
I could easily come up with examples of conversational English that would be comparable to the French example you just showed. However, that doesn't mean English is a polysynthetic language (and of course, it isn't). While "je t'aime Maman" may be realized as [StEm:amA~] there are still clear morpheme boundaries in the utterance to an extent that is not seen in polysynthetic languages.
Wikipedia lists some examples of grammatical constructions in polysynthetic languages:
<<--Chuckchi---
Təmeyŋəlevtpəγtərkən.
t-ə-meyŋ-ə-levt-pəγt-ə-rkən
1.SG.SUBJ-great-head-hurt-PRES.1
'I have a fierce headache.'
Təmeyŋəlevtpəγtərkən has a 5:1 morpheme-to-word ratio with 3 incorporated lexical morphemes (meyŋ 'great', levt 'head', pəγt 'ache').
--Western Greendlandic--
Aliikusersuillammassuaanerartassagaluarpaalli.
aliiku-sersu-i-llammas-sua-a-nerar-ta-ssa-galuar-paal-li
entertainment-provide-SEMITRANS-one.good.at-COP-say.that-REP-FUT-sure.but-3plSUBJ/3sgOBJ-but
'However, they will say that he is a great entertainer, but ...'
(12:1 ratio)
--Ubykh--
aχʲazbatʂʾaʁawdətʷaajlafaqʾajtʾmadaχ!
a-χʲa-z-batʂʾa-ʁa-w-də-tʷ-aaj-la-fa-qʾa-jtʾ-ma-da-χ
them-BEN-me-under-ABL-you-CAUS-take-ITER-all-POT-PAST-IMPF-NEG-COND-OPT
'If only you had not been able to make him take it all out from under me again for them!'
This one word contains 16 explicit morphemes, even without the incorporated nouns typical of many Ubykh verbs.>>
This is nothing like how French forms its sentences. If you learn *nothing* else from this topic, please realize that phonological reductions, assimilation, and leveling have nothing to do with grammatical typology.
I'm well aware of the large divide between written and spoken French. I studied French for a few years and have become aware of many of the phenomena present in conversational French.
<<If I were to write Canadian French Je t'aime maman (I love you mother) as it sounds phonologically shtem:má:mã I would have something that was not unlike an Arawakian Indian language in South America and it could be analayzed as sh (a particle meaning 'I') t (a particle meaning 'you' as an object) em (a particle meaning 'love' with a hint of 'I') and má:mã (a noun meaning 'mother'). If I had told you that shtem:má:mã was Ashaninca Campa instead of Canadian French, you probably would have believed me at first blush.>>
Once again, phonological leveling, assimilation, and/or reduction have NOTHING to do with a language's typological grammatical status! You're completely missing the point. I'm fully aware that that is a common phonological realization of "je t'aime maman" in conversational French. However, this is still wholly unrelated to French's grammatical status...
I could easily come up with examples of conversational English that would be comparable to the French example you just showed. However, that doesn't mean English is a polysynthetic language (and of course, it isn't). While "je t'aime Maman" may be realized as [StEm:amA~] there are still clear morpheme boundaries in the utterance to an extent that is not seen in polysynthetic languages.
Wikipedia lists some examples of grammatical constructions in polysynthetic languages:
<<--Chuckchi---
Təmeyŋəlevtpəγtərkən.
t-ə-meyŋ-ə-levt-pəγt-ə-rkən
1.SG.SUBJ-great-head-hurt-PRES.1
'I have a fierce headache.'
Təmeyŋəlevtpəγtərkən has a 5:1 morpheme-to-word ratio with 3 incorporated lexical morphemes (meyŋ 'great', levt 'head', pəγt 'ache').
--Western Greendlandic--
Aliikusersuillammassuaanerartassagaluarpaalli.
aliiku-sersu-i-llammas-sua-a-nerar-ta-ssa-galuar-paal-li
entertainment-provide-SEMITRANS-one.good.at-COP-say.that-REP-FUT-sure.but-3plSUBJ/3sgOBJ-but
'However, they will say that he is a great entertainer, but ...'
(12:1 ratio)
--Ubykh--
aχʲazbatʂʾaʁawdətʷaajlafaqʾajtʾmadaχ!
a-χʲa-z-batʂʾa-ʁa-w-də-tʷ-aaj-la-fa-qʾa-jtʾ-ma-da-χ
them-BEN-me-under-ABL-you-CAUS-take-ITER-all-POT-PAST-IMPF-NEG-COND-OPT
'If only you had not been able to make him take it all out from under me again for them!'
This one word contains 16 explicit morphemes, even without the incorporated nouns typical of many Ubykh verbs.>>
This is nothing like how French forms its sentences. If you learn *nothing* else from this topic, please realize that phonological reductions, assimilation, and leveling have nothing to do with grammatical typology.
Salut,
I'm French and i didn't know that french language had rythm stress. It's a flat language !
I don't really think that they are Germanic language etc etc. I think that 90% of the European languages are from Latin. French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese are obvious. But English is made with more than 70% of French words, and a lot of vocabulary are identical between German and English. German cases are from Latin etc ... It's like a cycle where all the languages act one the others except that the Romance language are the one who changed the least.
Hum and for the one who said that French are dirty and that was the difference. I know this is an image that we have ( and i don't know why ) but if you're so stupid to believe it.
You know what are the prejudices on British people ?
Uptights, they go to bed at 8p.m, the have no friends, and never smile.
You know what are the prejudices on American people ?
FAt, they care only about American' news etc etc
These images are stupid even if i know that the old french with his baguette in front of the eiffel Tower is part of the folklore ;)
I'm French and i didn't know that french language had rythm stress. It's a flat language !
I don't really think that they are Germanic language etc etc. I think that 90% of the European languages are from Latin. French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese are obvious. But English is made with more than 70% of French words, and a lot of vocabulary are identical between German and English. German cases are from Latin etc ... It's like a cycle where all the languages act one the others except that the Romance language are the one who changed the least.
Hum and for the one who said that French are dirty and that was the difference. I know this is an image that we have ( and i don't know why ) but if you're so stupid to believe it.
You know what are the prejudices on British people ?
Uptights, they go to bed at 8p.m, the have no friends, and never smile.
You know what are the prejudices on American people ?
FAt, they care only about American' news etc etc
These images are stupid even if i know that the old french with his baguette in front of the eiffel Tower is part of the folklore ;)
=>I think that 90% of the European languages are from Latin. French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese are obvious. But English is made with more than 70% of French words, and a lot of vocabulary are identical between German and English. German cases are from Latin etc ... <=
WHAT?!
Please speak about this subject when you know the facts!
German cases are not derrived from Latin, English is a Germanic language and an estimate of 20-25% of the IndoEuropean languages are Romantic ones!
WHAT?!
Please speak about this subject when you know the facts!
German cases are not derrived from Latin, English is a Germanic language and an estimate of 20-25% of the IndoEuropean languages are Romantic ones!
Oui, Brennus, il faut faire attention avec le français car c'est une langue (pratiquement) dépourvue d'accent de mot car l'intonation affecte plus volontiers la phrase, et en général la fin de phrase, donnant ainsi l'impression que les mots sont agglutinés car prononcés sur un ton monocorde.
Her Majesty the Queen, when speaking French, really sounds very natural. I think both languages have got a royal ancestry.
And that's obviously a non-difference between English and French.
Cheers. Claude.
And that's obviously a non-difference between English and French.
Cheers. Claude.