Linguistic typology Morphological Isolating Synthetic Polysynthetic Fusional Agglutinative Morphosyntactic Alignment Accusative Ergative Split ergative Philippine Active–stative Tripartite Inverse marking Syntactic pivot Theta role Word Order VO languages Subject Verb Object Verb Subject Object Verb Object Subject OV languages Subject Object Verb Object Subject Verb Object Verb Subject Time Manner Place Place Manner Time This box: view · talk · "Fusion (linguistics)" redirects here. For fusion in word formation, see Compound (linguistics). For the process of sound change, see Fusion (phonetics).

A fusional language (also called inflecting language) is a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by its tendency to overlay many morphemes in a way that can be difficult to segment. Examples of fusional Indo-European languages are Greek (classical and modern), Latin, Russian, German, Polish or Czech. Another notable group of fusional languages is the Semitic languages group. A high degree of fusion is also found in many Sami languages, such as Skolt Sami.

A good illustration of fusionality in language is the Latin word bonus, "good" (masculine). The ending -us denotes masculine gender, nominative case, and singular number. Changing any one of these features requires replacement of the suffix -us with a different one. In the form bonum, the ending -um may denote either masculine accusative, neuter accusative or neuter nominative. Contents 1 History 2 Declension in fusional languages 3 See also 4 References History

Fusional languages are generally believed to have descended from agglutinative languages, though there is no linguistic evidence in the form of attested language changes to confirm this view. On the other hand, fusional languages generally tend to lose their inflection over the centuries—some languages much more quickly than others.1 For example, supposedly, Sanskrit, Latin, Slovenian, Lithuanian, and Armenian are about as fusional as the unattested Proto-Indo-European, but modern English and Afrikaans are nearly analytic. The Slavic and Baltic languages have generally retained their inflection, along with Greek. Declension in fusional languages

Another typical feature of fusional languages is their systems of declensions. In German, for instance, the definite and indefinite articles are declined according to the grammatical gender of the noun and which of the four grammatical cases it falls into; these being nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive. The definite article, for example is declined in the following fashion:2 Case Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural Nominative der die das die Accusative den die das die Dative dem der dem den Genitive des der des der

Adjectives are also declined according to the gender and number of the noun they describe, whether it is preceded by a definite article (weak declension), indefinite article (mixed declension) or no article (strong declension). Examples: Der Hamster (masculine noun, nominative case) Des Hamsters (masculine noun, genitive case) And adding the adjective klein "little": Ein kleiner Hamster "a little hamster" (mixed declension, nominative case) Der kleine Hamster "the little hamster" (weak declension, nominative case) Ich sah den kleinen Hamster "I saw the little hamster" (weak declension, accusative case) Mit kleinem Hamster "with little hamster" (no article; strong declension, dative case).

English retains remnants of the Germanic case system only with regard to personal pronouns (e.g. "you see me" — accusative case) and with possessive case ("John's house") which is descended from the original genitive case. See also Inflection Synthetic language References ^ Deutscher, Guy (2005) The Unfolding of Language, William Heinemann, London. ^ Griesbach, Heinz / Schulz, Dora (1960): Grammatik der deutschen Sprache, Max Hueber Verlag, München.