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There's another category between analytic (no affixes) and agglutinating (potentially multiple affixes on a single word), namely inflectional (usually one affix
by mcswell 3y ago
There's another category between analytic (no affixes) and agglutinating (potentially multiple affixes on a single word), namely inflectional (usually one affix per word). Many IndoEuropean languages like Spanish, German and to some extent English fall into that class, although there are nuances. Spanish verbs generally have a single suffix that encodes person, number, tense and mood, but you could analyze the Spanish future tense as having a future suffix followed by a person/ number suffix.
- pezezin 3y ago> but you could analyze the Spanish future tense as having a future suffix followed by a person/ number suffix. The Spanish future tense is actually the infinitive plus the present simple of the auxiliary verb "haber". It started as a composite form, much like English "will + infinitive", but at some point it merged into a single form. For example: "He de comer" (I must eat) -> "Comer he" (I will eat) -> "Comeré" (I will eat) Note: the first form is still in use in the modern language, but the intermediate form sounds really archaic.