It is
called by philologists the _polysynthetic_ construction. What it is will
best appear by comparison. Every grammatical sentence conveys one
leading idea with its modifications and relations. Now a Chinese would
express these latter by unconnected syllables, the precise bearing of
which could only be guessed by their position; a Greek or a German would
use independent words, indicating their relations by terminations
meaningless in themselves; an Englishman gains the same end chiefly by
the use of particles and by position. Very different from all these is
the spirit of a polysynthetic language. It seeks to unite in the most
intimate manner all relations and modifications with the leading idea,
to merge one in the other by altering the forms of the words themselves
and welding them together, to express the whole in one word, and to
banish any conception except as it arises in relation to others. Thus in
many American tongues there is, in fact, no word for father, mother,
brother, but only for my, your, his father, etc.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30