Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Composition of many elements; specifically, in philology, composition from an abnormal number and variety of elements.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The act or process of combining many separate elements into a whole.
- noun (Philol.) The formation of a word by the combination of several simple words, as in the aboriginal languages of America; agglutination.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The act or process of
combining many separateelements into awhole . - noun linguistics The
formation of aword by thecombination of several simple words;agglutination .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Even easier languages would be those which exhibit extreme polysynthesis, such as Cherokee, where an entire English sentence can often be expressed in a single word.
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Timuquanan language, which "represents the acme of polysynthesis", a distinct linguistic stock.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 6: Fathers of the Church-Gregory XI 1840-1916 1913
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Max Mueller goes further, and asserts that what is called the process of agglutination in the Turanian languages is the same as what has been named polysynthesis in America.
The Myths of the New World A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America Daniel Garrison Brinton 1868
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However, with languages exhibiting polysynthesis (one word meaning an entire sentence in English), it’s less restraining.
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"sign," which in Algonquian polysynthesis is modified according to its grammatical affixes, and the sense of the passage used, when translated into an alien tongue.
John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records William Wallace Tooker 1882
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