Incorporation (linguistics)
Encyclopedia
Incorporation is a phenomenon by which a word, usually a verb
, forms a kind of compound
with, for instance, its direct object (object incorporation) or adverb
ial modifier, while retaining its original syntactic
function.
Incorporation is central to many polysynthetic language
s such as those found in North America, Siberia and northern Australia, but polysynthesis does not necessarily imply incorporation. Neither does the presence of incorporation in a language imply that that language is polysynthetic.
shows some instrument incorporation, as in breastfeed, and direct object incorporation, as in babysit. Etymologically, such verbs in English are usually back-formation
s: the verbs breastfeed and babysit are formed from the adjective breast-fed and the noun babysitter respectively. Incorporation and plain compounding
may be fuzzy categories: consider backstabbing, name-calling, axe murder.
(Iroquoian) illustrates noun incorporation.
In this example, the verbal root hninu appears with its usual verbal morphology: a factive marker (FACT), which very roughly translates as past tense, although this is not quite accurate; an agreement marker (1.SG), which tells us that the verb agrees with 1st person singular (the speaker); and an aspect marker, punctual (PUNC), which tells us that this is a completed event. The direct object ne kanaktaʼ follows the verb. The function of the particle ne is unclear. Note that the word for bed consists of a root nakt plus a prefix and a suffix. The notion of the root is important here, but the properties of the prefix and suffix do not matter for this discussion.
The following sentence means the same as above, but noun incorporation has taken place.
In this example, the root for bed nakt has incorporated into the verbal construction and appears before the verbal root. Two other incidental changes are noticed here. First, the agreement marker in the first example is k and in the second example is ke. These are two phonologically-conditioned allomorphs. In other words, the choice between using k and ke is based on the other sounds in the word (and has nothing to do with noun incorporation). Also, there is an epenthetic vowel a between the nominal and verbal roots. This vowel is inserted to break up an illegal consonant cluster (and also has nothing to do with noun incorporation).
' of "head", and the second its unincorporated form ipu:
, a Paleosiberian language spoken in North Eastern Siberia, provides a wealth of examples of noun incorporation. The phrase təpelarkən qoraŋə means "I'm leaving the reindeer" and has two words (the verb in the first person singular, and the noun). The same idea can be expressed with the single word təqorapelarkən, in which the noun root qora- "reindeer" is incorporated into the verb word.
, an Iroquoian language
, makes heavy use of incorporation, as in: watia'tawi'tsherí:io "it is a good shirt", where the noun root
atia'tawi "upper body garment" is present inside the verb.
, an Algonquian language
of the plains, also uses noun incorporation on a regular basis. Consider nátahpe'emaheona, meaning "I have a big house", which contains the noun morpheme maheo "house".
In Yucatec Maya, for example, the phrase "I chopped a tree", when the word for "tree" is incorporated, changes its meaning to "I chopped wood". In Lahu
(a Tibeto-Burman language
), the definite phrase "I drink the liquor" becomes the more general "I drink liquor" when "liquor" is incorporated. The Japanese
phrase 目を覚ます me o samasu means "to wake up" or literally to wake (one's) eyes. But when the direct object is incorporated into the nominal form of the verb, the resulting noun 目覚まし mezamashi literally means "waking up", as in 目覚まし時計 mezamashidokei meaning "alarm clock."
This tendency is not a rule. There are languages where noun incorporation does not produce a meaning change (though it may cause a change in syntax
— as explained below).
of the verb, and in some languages this is shown explicitly. That is, if the verb is transitive, the verb word with an incorporated direct object becomes formally intransitive and marked as such. In other languages this change does not take place, or at least it is not shown by explicit morphology.
In Lakhota
, a Siouan language
of the plains, for example, the phrase "the man is chopping wood" can be expressed either as a transitive wičháša kiŋ čháŋ kiŋ kaksáhe ("man the wood the chopping") or as an intransitive wičháša kiŋ čhaŋkáksahe ("man the wood-chopping") in which the independent nominal čháŋ, "wood," becomes a root incorporated into the verb: "wood-chopping."
The noun may not be deleted after all. In the Oneida language
(an Iroquoian language spoken in Southern Ontario and Wisconsin), one finds classifier noun incorporation, in which a generic noun acting as a direct object can be incorporated into a verb, but a more specific direct object is left in place. In a rough translation, one would say for example "I animal-bought this pig", where "animal" is the generic incorporated noun. Note that this "classifier" is not an actual classifier
(i.e. a class agreement morpheme) but a common noun.
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
, forms a kind of compound
Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...
with, for instance, its direct object (object incorporation) or adverb
Adverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
ial modifier, while retaining its original syntactic
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
function.
Incorporation is central to many polysynthetic language
Polysynthetic language
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages are highly synthetic languages, i.e., languages in which words are composed of many morphemes. Whereas isolating languages have a low morpheme-to-word ratio, polysynthetic languages have extremely high morpheme-to-word ratios.Not all languages can be...
s such as those found in North America, Siberia and northern Australia, but polysynthesis does not necessarily imply incorporation. Neither does the presence of incorporation in a language imply that that language is polysynthetic.
English
Though not regularly, EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
shows some instrument incorporation, as in breastfeed, and direct object incorporation, as in babysit. Etymologically, such verbs in English are usually back-formation
Back-formation
In etymology, back-formation is the process of creating a new lexeme, usually by removing actual or supposed affixes. The resulting neologism is called a back-formation, a term coined by James Murray in 1889...
s: the verbs breastfeed and babysit are formed from the adjective breast-fed and the noun babysitter respectively. Incorporation and plain compounding
Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...
may be fuzzy categories: consider backstabbing, name-calling, axe murder.
Oneida
The following example from OneidaOneida language
Oneida is an Iroquoian language spoken primarily by the Oneida people in the U.S. states of New York and Wisconsin, and the Canadian province of Ontario. There are an estimated 160 native speakers left. Language revitalization efforts are in progress...
(Iroquoian) illustrates noun incorporation.
| waʼkhninú: ne kanaktaʼ | |||||||||
| waʼ- | k- | hninu- | ': | ne | ka- | nakt- | aʼ | ||
| FACT- | 1.SG- | buy- | PUNC | ne | PREF- | bed- | SUF | ||
| 'I bought a bed.' | |||||||||
In this example, the verbal root hninu appears with its usual verbal morphology: a factive marker (FACT), which very roughly translates as past tense, although this is not quite accurate; an agreement marker (1.SG), which tells us that the verb agrees with 1st person singular (the speaker); and an aspect marker, punctual (PUNC), which tells us that this is a completed event. The direct object ne kanaktaʼ follows the verb. The function of the particle ne is unclear. Note that the word for bed consists of a root nakt plus a prefix and a suffix. The notion of the root is important here, but the properties of the prefix and suffix do not matter for this discussion.
The following sentence means the same as above, but noun incorporation has taken place.
| waʼkenaktahninú: | |||||
| waʼ- | ke- | nakt- | a- | hninu- | ': |
| FACT- | 1.SG- | bed- | EPEN- | buy- | PUNC |
| 'I bought a bed.' | |||||
In this example, the root for bed nakt has incorporated into the verbal construction and appears before the verbal root. Two other incidental changes are noticed here. First, the agreement marker in the first example is k and in the second example is ke. These are two phonologically-conditioned allomorphs. In other words, the choice between using k and ke is based on the other sounds in the word (and has nothing to do with noun incorporation). Also, there is an epenthetic vowel a between the nominal and verbal roots. This vowel is inserted to break up an illegal consonant cluster (and also has nothing to do with noun incorporation).
Panare
The next example, from Panare, illustrates the cross-linguistically common phenomenon that the incorporated form of a noun may be significantly different to its unincorporated form. The first sentence contains the incorporated form u| (1) | y-u'-kïti-ñe | amën |
| 3-head-cut-NONPERF.TRANS | 2SG | |
| "You head-cut it." | ||
| (2) | y-ipu-n | yï-kïti-ñe | amën |
| 3-head-POSS | TRNS-cut-NONPERF.TRNS | 2SG | |
| "You cut its head." | |||
Chukchi
ChukchiChukchi language
The Chukchi language is a Palaeosiberian language spoken by Chukchi people in the easternmost extremity of Siberia, mainly in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug...
, a Paleosiberian language spoken in North Eastern Siberia, provides a wealth of examples of noun incorporation. The phrase təpelarkən qoraŋə means "I'm leaving the reindeer" and has two words (the verb in the first person singular, and the noun). The same idea can be expressed with the single word təqorapelarkən, in which the noun root qora- "reindeer" is incorporated into the verb word.
Mohawk
MohawkMohawk language
Mohawk is an Iroquoian language spoken by around 2,000 people of the Mohawk nation in the United States and Canada . Mohawk has the largest number of speakers of the Northern Iroquoian languages; today it is the only one with greater than a thousand remaining...
, an Iroquoian language
Iroquoian languages
The Iroquoian languages are a First Nation and Native American language family.-Family division:*Ruttenber, Edward Manning. 1992 [1872]. History of the Indian tribes of Hudson's River. Hope Farm Press....
, makes heavy use of incorporation, as in: watia'tawi'tsherí:io "it is a good shirt", where the noun root
Root (linguistics)
The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
atia'tawi "upper body garment" is present inside the verb.
Cheyenne
CheyenneCheyenne language
The Cheyenne language is a Native American language spoken by the Cheyenne people, predominantly in present-day Montana and Oklahoma in the United States. It is part of the Algonquian language family...
, an Algonquian language
Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...
of the plains, also uses noun incorporation on a regular basis. Consider nátahpe'emaheona, meaning "I have a big house", which contains the noun morpheme maheo "house".
Semantics of noun incorporation
In many cases, a phrase with an incorporated noun carries a different meaning with respect to the equivalent phrase where the noun is not incorporated into the verb. The difference seems to hang around the generality and definiteness of the statement. The incorporated phrase is usually generic and indefinite, while the non-incorporated one is more specific.In Yucatec Maya, for example, the phrase "I chopped a tree", when the word for "tree" is incorporated, changes its meaning to "I chopped wood". In Lahu
Lahu language
Lahu is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by the Lahu people of China, Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos. It is widely used in China, both by Lahu people, and by other ethnic minorities in Yunnan, who use it as a lingua franca. However, the language is not widely used nor taught in any schools in...
(a Tibeto-Burman language
Tibeto-Burman languages
The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Chinese members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken thoughout the highlands of southeast Asia, as well as lowland areas in Burma ....
), the definite phrase "I drink the liquor" becomes the more general "I drink liquor" when "liquor" is incorporated. The Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
phrase 目を覚ます me o samasu means "to wake up" or literally to wake (one's) eyes. But when the direct object is incorporated into the nominal form of the verb, the resulting noun 目覚まし mezamashi literally means "waking up", as in 目覚まし時計 mezamashidokei meaning "alarm clock."
This tendency is not a rule. There are languages where noun incorporation does not produce a meaning change (though it may cause a change in syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
— as explained below).
Syntax of noun incorporation
Noun incorporation usually deletes one of the argumentsVerb argument
In linguistics, a verb argument is a phrase that appears in a syntactic relationship with the verb in a clause. In English, for example, the two most important arguments are the subject and the direct object....
of the verb, and in some languages this is shown explicitly. That is, if the verb is transitive, the verb word with an incorporated direct object becomes formally intransitive and marked as such. In other languages this change does not take place, or at least it is not shown by explicit morphology.
In Lakhota
Lakota language
Lakota is a Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes. While generally taught and considered by speakers as a separate language, Lakota is mutually understandable with the other two languages , and is considered by most linguists one of the three major varieties of the Sioux...
, a Siouan language
Siouan languages
The Western Siouan languages, also called Siouan proper or simply Siouan, are a Native American language family of North America, and the second largest indigenous language family in North America, after Algonquian...
of the plains, for example, the phrase "the man is chopping wood" can be expressed either as a transitive wičháša kiŋ čháŋ kiŋ kaksáhe ("man the wood the chopping") or as an intransitive wičháša kiŋ čhaŋkáksahe ("man the wood-chopping") in which the independent nominal čháŋ, "wood," becomes a root incorporated into the verb: "wood-chopping."
The noun may not be deleted after all. In the Oneida language
Oneida language
Oneida is an Iroquoian language spoken primarily by the Oneida people in the U.S. states of New York and Wisconsin, and the Canadian province of Ontario. There are an estimated 160 native speakers left. Language revitalization efforts are in progress...
(an Iroquoian language spoken in Southern Ontario and Wisconsin), one finds classifier noun incorporation, in which a generic noun acting as a direct object can be incorporated into a verb, but a more specific direct object is left in place. In a rough translation, one would say for example "I animal-bought this pig", where "animal" is the generic incorporated noun. Note that this "classifier" is not an actual classifier
Classifier (linguistics)
A classifier, in linguistics, sometimes called a measure word, is a word or morpheme used in some languages to classify the referent of a countable noun according to its meaning. In languages that have classifiers, they are often used when the noun is being counted or specified...
(i.e. a class agreement morpheme) but a common noun.