Syntax

• Main Author: Drechsel, Emanuel J
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressOxford 1997
• Subjects: eskimo*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198240334.003.0006; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/52234473/isbn-9780198240334-book-part-6.pdf

Abstract Following conventional, perhaps almost stereotypical wisdom, North American Indian languages distinguished themselves by polysynthesis— that is by the incorporation of several stems and affixes into one-word phrases or sentences (see e.g. Mithun 1983). At the opposite end on the scale of morphological synthesis and in sharp contrast to this type of grammatical pattern appear pidgins with their fundamentally analytic structure. Like Eskimo Jargon, Chinook Jargon, Delaware Jargon, and other Native American contact media, Mobilian Jargon generally lacked affixations or inflections; its speakers determined the grammatical functions of words by their position within a phrase or sentence, that is word order, and also from the sociolinguistic context.