Polysynthesis in the Arctic/Sub-Arctic

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Michael Fortescue | University of Copenhagen, and St Hugh’s College Oxford

This paper presents a diagnostic for distinguishing older from newer forms of polysynthesis. Explanations for the global “cline” of polysynthesis from northern Asia into northwestern America are examined in this light. This leads to addressing the questions as to the “robustness” of polysynthesis in general (and head-marking morphology in particular) and as to whether its development is necessarily a “one-way road.” Traces of the phenomenon in the Amur-Sakhalin-Hokkaido area suggest at least one possible Asian source of the cline.

Published online: 13 December 2013
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.104.10for

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2021. In Antipassive [Typological Studies in Language, 130],

Zúñiga, Fernando

2019. Polysynthesis: A review. Language and Linguistics Compass 13:4 ► pp. e12326 ff.

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