Fusing language
Note: In the image the color of the loop symbolizes the sex of the feline. (Rosa = female. Blue = male)
The fusion languages (formerly called inflectional languages, a term that currently also includes agglutinative languages) are a type of synthetic language with morphological inflection, which also have a tendency to merge morphemes. That is, inflectional languages are those that are characterized by tending to include a lot of information by inflecting words, typically adding affixes. Within inflectional languages, fusion languages differ from agglutinative languages because they use fewer morphemes for inflection, due to their tendency to merge them, in such a way that the same morpheme simultaneously performs the role of several theoretical morphemes.
The differences between the different classes of languages according to their typology are not absolute, but of degree. In this regard, it can be said, for example, that classical Latin was more inflective than Spanish, which in turn is more inflective than English.
In fusion languages, an affix often syncretically reflects two or more parts of speech. For example, in Spanish verbs the ending -mos indicates that it is a form of the 1st person and also that it is plural, therefore a single morph encompasses the morpheme of person and the one of number In Latin, the inflectional suffix of adjectives -ōrum indicates both the genitive case and the plural number, as well as the preferably masculine or neuter gender (thus a single suffix reflects up to three categories at the same time)..
Languages that lack inflections or tend to have few inflections are the isolating languages (sometimes also called analytic languages). A good example of the contrast between these two types of languages is the inflectional Old English and the much more analytical English of today.
Another type of language according to its morphosyntactic features are polysynthetic languages, characterized by forming long words with many morphemes, and which generally allow the so-called incorporation, that is, putting words inside of other words to form a sentence; for example, that a conjugated verb carries within it the direct object.
Examples of fusion languages
The Indo-European languages are the main example of highly fusion synthetic languages, among them some particular groups can be mentioned:
- Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian
- Germanic: German, Icelandic
- Slaves: Russian, Polish, Bulgarian
- Baltic: Latvian, Lithuanian
Most of the European languages are fusions to a greater or lesser degree, precisely because they are Indo-European languages. Uralic languages and Basque are agglutinative; and therefore, inflectional languages, but with little or no degree of fusion. Semitic languages, from North Africa and the Middle East, are another good example of fusion languages. In America, the Penuti languages are highly fusional, presenting in addition to inflection and fusion other typologically similar features to the Indo-European languages, although there is no phylogenetic relationship between these language groups.
All fusion languages have a developed inflection in one of the grammatical categories. In Latin, classical Greek, Sanskrit, and many other ancient Indo-European languages, this inflection applies to nouns, adjectives, and pronouns as well as verbs. This inflectional richness facilitates in these languages a quite free order of words in each sentence.
In many modern Indo-European languages of Europe, the nominal inflection has been minimized, being more analytic, but still retaining considerably more fusional inflection in the verb. The latter is seen more clearly in the Romance languages. However, not all languages with abundant inflection, such as Turkish, are agglutinative, but agglutinative.
