§ 309. The typological classification of languages ​​is the division of languages ​​into certain classes, or types, depending on the nature (type) language units of one level or another, from the ways and means of expressing their grammatical meanings, regardless of the origin of the language.

Typological classification of languages, in contrast to the one discussed above genealogical classification, is relative, it is "always relative and historically changeable due to the changeability of the very structure of the language and its theoretical understanding."

To refer to the typological classification of languages ​​in the specialized literature, the term "morphological classification of languages" is often used. This is explained by typological classification languages ​​are most often carried out on the basis of morphological features words or word forms. It should be considered as a specific concept in relation to typological classification, as one of the types of typological classification (for more details, see below).

The typological classification of languages ​​can be carried out according to various structural features - not only morphological, but also syntactic, phonetic (or phonological), semantic (lexico-semantic), etc. On this basis, some linguists within the framework of the typological classification of languages ​​distinguish several different classifications, they talk about different typological classifications, or typologies - morphological, syntactic, phonetic (phonological), semantic. The most developed and best known is the morphological typological classification, or morphological typology, of the languages ​​of the world.

§ 310. Morphological classification is called the "classification of languages, carried out in morphological level", i.e. based on the morphological features of words, their grammatical forms. According to B. N. Golovin, "the morphological (typological) classification of languages ​​is based on the similarities and differences in the morphological structure of words (meaning their morphemic structure. - V.N.) in one language or another.

According to the morphological features of words (word forms), according to their morphemic structure, most of the languages ​​of the world are divided, first of all, into two classes, or types, into root and affix languages.

Root languages ​​are considered in which "the word is usually equal to the root, and the relationship between words is transmitted primarily syntactically (word order, auxiliary words, rhythm, intonation)"; in them "there are no affixes of formation, there is, of course, no grammatical change of the word associated with such affixes." AT linguistic literature root languages ​​are also called isolating, or root-isolating, without affixes (see above), amorphous, analytic.

Roots are, for example, most languages South-East Asia, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc.

affixal called languages ​​in which the grammatical forms of words are formed with the help of affixes - in the broad sense of this term, i.e. in the meaning of affixes proper (affixes in the narrow sense of the word) and inflections, or endings. Among affixal languages, inflectional and agglutinative languages ​​are distinguished.

"Languages ​​inflectional and agglutinative can be called affixal, opposing them to root languages."

To inflectional(inflecting) are languages ​​in which the main means of forming grammatical forms of words and expressing grammatical meanings is the ending, or inflection (external or internal), as a polyfunctional, polysemantic grammatical morpheme. According to B. N. Golovin, inflection in such languages ​​is "a stable and essential feature of the morphological structure of the word." The polyfunctionality of inflection lies in the fact that the same inflectional morpheme as part of the same word form is capable of expressing different grammatical meanings. For example, flexion th in word form white expresses at the same time the meaning singular, nominative or accusative, belonging to the masculine gender; flexion -it in word form sees- meanings of the indicative mood, present tense, singular, 3rd person.

First of all, most Indo-European languages ​​(Slavic, Baltic, etc.), many Afroasian (Afroasiatic), or Semitic-Hamitic, languages ​​are inflectional.

Agglutinative(agglutinating) languages ​​(from lat. agglutinare- "glue"), as well as inflectional ones, are characterized by the fact that in them the grammatical forms of words are formed with the help of morphemes, affixes, which in a certain sequence are attached to the stem of the word, "stick", "stick" to it. They differ from inflectional languages ​​primarily in that the morphemes in them are unambiguous, each morpheme expresses only one strictly certain value. At the same time, morphemes have a stable phonemic composition, remain unchanged when combined with different stems and with other affixal morphemes.

Agglutinative languages ​​include Japanese, Korean, Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Mongolian, Indonesian, Indian languages, and many African languages.

An example of an agglutinative word form from Turkish: dallarda("on the branches"), where dal-– root-base with the value "branch", -lar-- affix with the meaning of the plural. numbers and -da- affix with the meaning of the local case.

There are also languages ​​in the world that do not fit into the framework of the three morphological types considered. They stand out in special type languages ​​that are called incorporating(from lat. incorporare-"include in its composition, attach"), In such languages, derivative (compound) words (word forms) are used that are equivalent to sentences. They are often also called polysynthetic (literally - "multi-combining").

The incorporating languages ​​include some languages ​​of Asia (Chukchi, Karyak, etc.), many languages ​​of the Indians North America and etc.

Example from the language Indian tribe nootka: unikw-ihl-"minih-"is-it-a("There were a few lights in the house"), where uniqw- root meaning "fire" or "burn", -ihl-- a root with the meaning "house", -"minih-- plural affix -"is-- affix with diminutive value, -it-- an indicator of the elapsed time, -a- an indicator of indicative mood.

Another example is from the North American Chinook Indian language: i-n-i-a-1-u-d-am("I came to give it to her"), where -d– stem root with the value "give away" to which prefixes are attached i- (indicates the past tense) -P-(transfers the pronominal object "I"), -i-(pronominal object "it"), -a-(pronominal object "her"), - l- (prepositional element), -and-(an indicator of movement directed away from the speaker) and -am(suffix specifying the spatial meaning of the verb).

As can be seen from the review given above, modern linguistics usually distinguishes four morphological types of languages; they are root languages, or isolating, inflectional, agglutinative and incorporating languages. Such a classification in recent times is the most famous and popular; it is reflected in the latest educational literature course "Introduction to Linguistics".

Other morphological classifications of languages ​​are also proposed, i.e. classifications based on other criteria, for example, depending on the way the grammatical forms of words are formed and, accordingly, on the way the grammatical meanings are expressed. On this basis, the following morphological types of languages ​​are distinguished: synthetic languages ​​(grammatical forms are formed in a synthetic way), analytical (word forms are formed in an analytical way) and polysynthetic (combine the features of synthetic and analytical languages).

It should be noted that there are no strict boundaries between different morphological types of languages. It is known, for example, that many languages ​​(for example, the languages ​​of Oceania) occupy an intermediate position between root (amorphous) and agglutinative, combine the features of both and "can be characterized as amorphous-agglutinative." Partially, this also applies to the Russian language, which, according to most morphological features, is one of the inflectional ones, i.e. synthetic, but at the same time has some signs of root, or analytical. Many grammatical forms in it are formed in an analytical way, for example, the forms prepositional nouns ( in the garden, on the shore, about the forest), forms of degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs ( more beautiful, most beautiful, most beautiful), future tense forms of verbs imperfect form, forms subjunctive mood and others. There are many grammatically invariable significant words in the Russian language, such as, for example, adverbs (there, everywhere, today etc.), nouns of foreign origin with a stem in a vowel (cinema, taxi, kangaroo etc.) and others, which is typical for root, isolating languages.

Morphological typology of languages- the most developed area of ​​typological research. Typological linguistics began to develop precisely with morphological classification languages, that is, among other areas of typological research, morphological typology is chronologically the first.

In the languages ​​of the world, there are two main groups of ways of expressing grammatical meanings- synthetic and analytical.

For synthetic methods expressions of grammatical meanings are characterized by the connection of a grammatical indicator with the word itself. Such an indicator, which grammatical meaning"inside the word" maybe prefix, suffix, ending, internal inflection(alternation of sounds in the root: lie down - lie down - bed), stress change ( ss?ypat - pour), suppletivism (child - children, take - take) (see A.A. Reformatsky, 1997, pp. 263–313). The term "synthetic" is motivated, from the Greek. synthesis- "combination, compilation, association."

For analytical methods characteristic expression of grammatical meaning outside words, separately from it: with the help of prepositions, conjunctions, articles, auxiliary verbs, other auxiliary words; using word order through general intonation statements. Recall that analytical - from the Greek. analysis- "separation, decomposition, dismemberment" - this is a separating, decomposing into its component parts; associated with analysis.

Scientists identify the following ways expressions of grammatical meanings:

affixation(attachment to the root of grammatical morphemes - affixes);

internal flexion(significant alternation of phonemes in the root of the word, such as English. sing–song or Russian lie down - lie down);

stress;

intonation;

reduplication(repetition of a root morpheme or a whole word);

official words(prepositions, conjunctions, particles, articles, auxiliary verbs and etc.);

word order.

Sometimes this list is added composition(although this grammatical method does not serve for inflection, but for the formation of new words) and suppletivism- using a different root to convey grammatical meaning, like Russian. man - people, put - put or English. good-better).

In principle, each language uses different grammatical ways of those named, but in practice they are grouped in a certain way, combined with each other. Namely: in some languages, grammatical meaning is expressed mainly within the (significant) word itself: with the help of affixation, internal inflection, stress. Lexical and grammatical meanings appear here in a complex, jointly forming the semantics of the word. Such languages ​​are called synthetic languages. Examples are ancient Latin, and from modern languages– Finnish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Polish. In other languages, grammatical meaning is expressed outside significant word: using function words, word order, intonation. In such languages, grammatical and lexical meanings are presented separately, they are embodied in different material means. This is analytic languages; these include modern English, French, Danish, Bulgarian, etc.

Many languages ​​combine the features of analyticism and synthetism in their grammatical structure. In particular, modern Russian belongs to the languages mixed order(with some preponderance in the direction of synthetism, although the share of analytical tools in it is steadily increasing); they also include German(although elements of analyticism predominate in it), see about this: (B.Yu. Norman, 2004, p. 205).

There are languages ​​in which there are almost no synthetic methods. These are Chinese, Vietnamese, Lao, Thai, Khmer. AT early XIX in. some linguists have called them amorphous(formless), that is, devoid of form. W. von Humboldt clarified that these languages ​​are not formless, he called them isolating. It was found that these languages ​​are not devoid of grammatical form, but grammatical meanings are expressed in them separately, in isolation from lexical meaning the words. The "morphemes" of such languages ​​are extremely isolated from each other, independent, that is, the morpheme is both a root and a separate word. How are words formed in such languages? Do they only contain words like write but no rewrite, nor letter? New words in isolating languages ​​are formed according to a different principle. To form new words, in such languages, you just need to put the roots (words) side by side and you get something in between a compound word and two words. For example, this is how Chinese words are formed from the word write:

rewrite = write + remake, letter = write + subject etc. (on isolating languages, see: N.V. Solntsev, 1985).

On the other hand, there are languages ​​in which the root of the word is so heavily overloaded with various auxiliary and dependent root morphemes that such a word, growing, turns into a sentence in meaning, but at the same time remains shaped like a word. Some words in such languages ​​seem to be introduced into others. At the same time, complex alternations often occur at the junctions of morphemes. Such a word-sentence device is called incorporation(lat . incorporation - inclusion in its composition, from lat. in- in; corpus- the body, a single whole), and the corresponding languages incorporating, or polysynthetic. Polysynthetic languages ​​are Eskimo-Aleut, Chukchi, Koryak, most of the Indian languages ​​of North and Central America.

J. Greenberg even identified language synthesis index.

Languages ​​can be classified not only according to their origin from one common ancestor language, but also based on the features of their morphological structure. This classification is called morphological.

According to the morphological classification, all the languages ​​of the world are distributed among four types. The first type includes the so-called root-isolating or amorphous languages. These languages ​​are characterized by a complete or almost complete absence of inflection and, as a consequence, a very high grammatical significance of word order. Root-isolating languages ​​include Chinese, Vietnamese, Dungan, Muong, and many others. etc. Modern English is evolving towards root isolation.

The second type is inflectional or fusional languages. These include Slavic, Baltic, Italic, some of the Indian and Iranian languages. Languages ​​of this type are characterized by a developed system of inflection and the ability to convey the entire gamut of grammatical meanings with one indicator. So, for example, in the Russian word "at home" the end of the word "-a" is both a sign and male, and plural and nominative.

Languages ​​of the third type are called agglutinative or agglutinative. These include Turkic, Tungus-Manchurian, Finno-Ugric, Kartvelian, Andaman and some other languages. The principle of agglutination is also the basis of grammar artificial language esperatno. For languages ​​of this type, as well as for inflectional languages, a developed system of inflection is characteristic, but, unlike inflectional languages, in agglutinative languages ​​each grammatical meaning has its own indicator.

For example, let's take the instrumental plural of the Komi-Permyak word "sin" (eye) - "synnezon". Here the morpheme "nez" is an indicator of the plural, and the morpheme "on" is an indicator instrumental. Agglutination, in which the morphemes that form grammatical form words found after the root is called postfiguring. Along with it, there is agglutination, which uses morphemes in front of the root - prefixes to form the grammatical form of the word. Such agglutination is called prefiguring.

Prefiguring agglutination is widespread in the Bantu languages ​​(Africa). In Swahili, for example, in verb form anawasifu - "praises" the prefix a- denotes a third person, -na - the present tense, and -wa - indicates that the action denoted by this verb is performed by a living being. In Georgian and other Kartvelian languages, we encounter bilateral agglutination: morphemes that form the grammatical form of a word are located on both sides of the root. So, in the Georgian verb form “vmushaobt” - “we work”, the prefix v- denotes the first person, and the suffix t - plural.

Agglutinative languages ​​are characterized by the presence of a common type of declension for all nouns and a common type of conjugation for all verbs. In inflectional languages, on the contrary, we encounter a wide variety of types of declension and conjugation. So, in Russian there are three declensions and two conjugations, in Latin there are five declensions and four conjugations.

The fourth type is made up of incorporating or polysynthetic languages. These include the languages ​​of the Chukotka-Kamchatka family, some languages ​​of the Indians of North America. For languages ​​of this type, the combination of a whole sentence into one large compound word is characteristic. Wherein grammatical indicators draw up not individual words, but the whole word-sentence as a whole.

Some analogue of incorporation in Russian can be the replacement of the sentence "I fish" with one word - "fishing". Of course, such constructions are not typical for the Russian language. They are clearly artificial. Moreover, in Russian, in the form compound word can only imagine a simple non-extended proposal with a personal pronoun as the subject. It is impossible to "fold" into one word the sentence "The boy is fishing" or "I am catching good fish."

In incorporating languages, any sentence can only be represented as a single compound word. So, for example, in the Chukchi language, the sentence “We guard new networks” will look like “Mytturkupregynrityrkyn”. It can be said that in incorporating languages ​​the boundary between word formation and syntax is blurred to a certain extent.

Speaking about the four morphological types of languages, we must remember that just as there is no chemically pure, unadulterated substance in nature, there is not a single completely inflectional, agglutinative, root-isolating or incorporating language. Yes, Chinese and Dungan languages, predominantly root isolating, contain some, albeit minor, elements of agglutination. There are elements of agglutination in inflectional Latin(for example, the formation of forms of the imperfect or the future first tense). And vice versa, in agglutinative Estonian we encounter elements of inflection. So, for example, in the word töötavad (work), the ending "-vad" denotes both the third person and the plural.

A.Yu. Musorin. Fundamentals of the science of language - Novosibirsk, 2004

Typological (morphological) classification of languages

Typological (morphological) classification of languages, based on morphological data, regardless of genetic or spatial proximity, relying solely on properties language structure. The typological classification of languages ​​seeks to cover the material of all the languages ​​of the world, to reflect their similarities and differences, and at the same time to identify possible language types and the specifics of each language or group typologically similar languages, while relying on data not only from morphology, but also from phonology, syntax, and semantics.

The basis for including a language in the typological classification of languages ​​is the type of language, that is, a characteristic of the fundamental properties of its structure. However, the type is not implemented absolutely in the language; in fact, each language has several types, that is, each language is polytypological. Therefore, it is appropriate to say to what extent this or that type is present in the structure of a given language; on this basis, attempts are made to give a quantitative interpretation of the typological characteristics of the language.

The following typological classification of languages ​​is most accepted:

• 1. Isolating (or amorphous) languages: they are characterized by the absence of forms of inflection and, accordingly, formative affixes. The word in them is "equal to the root", which is why such languages ​​are sometimes called root languages. The connection between words is less grammatical, but word order and their semantics are grammatically significant. Words devoid of affixal morphemes are, as it were, isolated from each other as part of an utterance, therefore these languages ​​are called isolating languages ​​(these include Chinese, Vietnamese, the languages ​​of Southeast Asia, etc.). In the syntactic structure of the sentences of such languages, word order is extremely important: the subject always comes before the predicate, the definition - before the word being defined, direct object- after the verb (cf. in Chinese: gao shan " high mountains", but shan gao -" the mountains are high ");
• 2. Affixing languages, in the grammatical structure of which important role affixes play. The connection between words is more grammatical, words have affixes of formation. However, the nature of the connection between the affix and the root and the nature of the meaning conveyed by the affix in these languages ​​may be different. In this connection, in affixing languages, languages ​​of the inflectional and agglutinative types are distinguished:
  • a) Inflectional languages ​​are languages ​​that are characterized by the multifunctionality of affixal morphemes (cf. in Russian, inflection -a can convey grammatical meanings of a number in the declension system of nouns: singular wall and plural city; case: im. p singular country, birthplace of city, winery of ox and clan: spouse - wife). The presence of the phenomenon of fusion, i.e. interpenetration of morphemes, in which drawing a boundary between the root and the affix becomes impossible (cf. muzhik + -sk --> muzhik); "internal inflection", indicating the grammatical form of the word (cf. German Bruder "brother" - Brueder "brothers"); big number phonetically and semantically unmotivated types of declension and conjugation. All languages ​​are inflected Indo-European languages;
  • b) Agglutinative languages ​​are languages ​​that are a kind of antipode of inflectional languages, because they have no internal inflection, no fusion, therefore morphemes are easily distinguished in the composition of words, formatives convey one grammatical meaning, and only one type of inflection is presented in each part of speech. Agglutinative languages ​​are characterized by a developed system of inflectional and derivational affixation, in which affixes are characterized by grammatical unambiguity: sequentially “sticking” to the root, they express one grammatical meaning (for example, in Uzbek and Georgian number and case are expressed by two different affixes, cf. dt.p. plural noun "girl" in Uzbek kiz-lar-ga "girls", where the affix -par- conveys the meaning of the plural, and the suffix -ga - the meaning dative case, in Russian, one inflection -am conveys both of these meanings), therefore, in such languages ​​there is a single type of declension and conjugation. Agglutinative languages ​​include Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Tungus-Manchurian, Japanese, Korean, and other languages;
• 3. Incorporating (or polysynthetic) languages ​​are languages ​​that are characterized by the incompleteness of the morphological structure of the word, which allows the inclusion of other members of the sentence in one member (for example, a direct object can be included in the verb-predicate). The word "acquires structure" only in the composition of the sentence, i.e. here there is a special relationship between the word and the sentence: outside the sentence there is no word in our understanding, sentences constitute the main unit of speech, in which words are “included” (cf. the Chukchi word-sentence myt-kupre-gyn-rit-yr-kyn "we save networks" , which incorporates the definition of "new" tour: myt-tur-cupre-gyn-rit-yr-kyn "we save new networks). These sentence words contain an indication not only of the action, but also of the object and even its attribute. The incorporating languages ​​include the languages ​​of the Indians of North America, Chukchi-Kamchatka, etc.

The typological classification of languages ​​cannot be considered final, mainly because of its inability to reflect all the specifics separate language considering its structure. But it contains in an implicit form the possibility of its refinement by analyzing other areas of the language. For example, in isolating languages ​​such as classical Chinese, Vietnamese, and Guinean, one-syllable words equal to a morpheme, the presence of polytony, and a number of other interrelated characteristics are observed.

The concept of linguistic relativity is the theory of the dependence of the style of thinking and fundamental worldview paradigms of a collective native speaker on the specifics of the latter. “The language of a people is its spirit, and the spirit of a people is its language,” and in this sense, “Every language is a kind of worldview” (Humboldt). So the typology public life can and should be explained in terms of the variability of cultures expressing themselves in various languages. In this regard, within the framework of the linguistic relativity of the concept, a hypothetical model of the development of world culture is being formed, which could be based not on the Indo-European language matrix and the corresponding European rational-logical deductivism and the linear concept of irreversible time, but on a radically different language material. It is assumed that this would lead to the formation of a world culture of a fundamentally different type.

Typical synthetic languages ​​include the ancient written Indo-European languages: Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Latin, Gothic, Old Church Slavonic; at the present time largely Lithuanian, German, Russian (although both with many active features of analyticism); to analytical: Romanesque, English, Danish, Modern Greek, New Persian, New Indian; from Slavic - Bulgarian.

Languages ​​such as Turkic, Finnish, despite the predominant role of affixation in their grammar, have a lot of analyticity in the system due to the agglutinating nature of their affixation; languages ​​like Arabic are synthetic because their grammar is expressed within the word, but they are rather analytic in terms of the agglutinating tendency of affixation. Of course, in this respect there are deviations and contradictions; so, in German article- an analytical phenomenon, but it declines according to cases - this is synthetism; the plural of nouns in English is expressed, as a rule, once, - an analytical phenomenon.