Different Types of Language Structure

The discussion of word structure in Chapter Four leads into a discussion of the structure of sentences. However, it also raises the question of different language structures. Not all languages are structured in the same way.

The structure of English words can be changed by the addition of prefixes and suffixes, as discussed in Chapter Four. These changes indicate different grammatical relationships or the addition of new meaning to a word, or else they lead to the construction of new words.

Not all languages follow the same pattern. Some linguists have identified three main types oflanguages, according to their morphology, or the ways in which their words are structured (Crystal1987:293).

In some languages, the kinds of word changes discussed in Chapter Four do not occur at all. In these languages, words have only one ftxed form and do not add any endings. Grammatical relationships are indicated by means of word order. These are called isolating languages. Chinese and Vietnam­ ese are examples of such isolating languages.

Other languages, called inflecting languages, indicate grammatical rela­ tionships by means of word endings such as the ones discussed in Chapter Four. Latin is an example of such an inflecting language. Each ending in an inflecting language conveys several grammatical meanings, and word or­ der is relatively unimportant.

In the third type of language, words are constructed out of a sequence of separate units, with each unit conveying a single meaning. For example, tense is indicated by one unit, number by another unit, and so on. All these units are added to the base to form one long word. Such languages are known as agglutinating languages.

The Structure of English

Where does English fit into the categories described above? It is clearly not an agglutinating language, but which of the other two categories does it belong to?

English Word Order

Word order is clearly important in English. There is a great difference in meaning between the two sentences The dog bit thepostman and Thepostman bit the dog.

English Word Endings

However, word endings are also important in English. There is a clear difference between the two sentences The dog bites the postman and The dogs bit the postmen.