Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-wxvwp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T22:34:31.368Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Evidence for a Synthetic Trend in Totonacan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Norman A. McQuown
Norman A. McQuown*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

For some time there has existed among some philosophers of language an assumption that linguistic development through time shows a universal trend from synthesis to analysis, from multimorphemic to monomorphemic words. Jespersen's theory of progress in language embodies such an assumption. Such hypotheses are based on preconceptions as to inferior and superior types of linguistic structures, with holophrasis at the inferior ‘primitive’ end of the continuum, and with languages which split such holophrases into monomorphemic words at the superior, ‘civilized’ end. Implicit likewise is the thesis that the superior type appeared concomitantly with development of high cultures. In contradistinction to this assumed trend of linguistic development, some evidence has been adduced for the opposite process, that of building up more complex words from earlier phrases, of a shift from analysis to synthesis. Swadesh made such a claim for Nootka in comparison with other related languages, and the isolated instances from Romance languages are well known.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 32 , Issue 1: January-March , March 1956, pp. 78 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © 1956 by the Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 O. Jespersen, Progress in language with special reference to English (London and New York, 1894), Efficiency in linguistic change (Copenhagen, 1941).

2 M. Swadesh, A structural trend in Nootka, Word 4.106–19 (1948).

3 For instance Spanish amaré from Late Latin amare habeo.

4 Totonac and Tepehua.

5 Twenty-five languages, including Yucatec (Maya proper), Mam, and Huastec.

6 Zoque, Mixe, and Popoluca.

7 N. A. McQuown, Una posible síntesis lingüística Macro-Mayance, Mayas y Olmecas 2.37–8 (Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología, Reunión de Mesa Redonda sobre Problemas Antropológicos de México y Centro América; México, 1942).

8 Languages are abbreviated as follows: Ma, Mam; Te, Tepehua; To (C), Totonac (Coatepec); To Z, Totonac-Zapotitlán; Yu, Yucatec; Zo, Zoque. A vertical bar marks a morpheme boundary.

9 B. L. Whorf, The comparative linguistics of Uto-Aztecan, American anthropologist NS 37.600–8 (1935).

10 B. L. Whorf and G. L. Trager, The relationship of Uto-Aztecan and Tanoan, American anthropologist NS 39.609–24 (1937).

11 R. B. Dixon and A. L. Kroeber, Linguistic families of California (University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 47–118; Berkeley, 1919).

12 E. Sapir, Language 118 (New York, 1921).