Polysynthetic words

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter is an overview of some current issues of polysynthetic words from a morpho-syntactic perspective in Generative Grammar. The central idea explored is that polysynthetic languages are characterized by lack of ‘bundling’ (Harley 2017), which results in a higher ratio of minimal functional morphemes than seen in more bundling languages like English (see Mattissen 2004; 2017 for a related perspective). The polysynthetic word is constructed in the syntax (Halle and Marantz 1993) and a post-syntactic process amalgamates the functional morphemes into a single domain or word (Compton and Pittman 2010; Harizanov and Gribanova 2018 inter alia). It is proposed that minimal features are by default attached like clitics. The role of morphophonological representations in affixation in Inuttitut is briefly discussed. This chapter also looks at some historical evidence for change in languages from phrases to polysynthetic words.