Monosyllabic language
A monosyllabic language is a language in which words predominantly consist of a single syllable. An example of a monosyllabic language would be Old Chinese[1] or Vietnamese or Burmese.
Monosyllabism is the name for the property of single-syllable word form. The natural complement of monosyllabism is
Whether a language is monosyllabic or not sometimes depends on the definition of "word", which is far from being a settled matter among linguists.
Single-vowel form
A monosyllable may be complex and include seven or more consonants and a vowel (CCCCVCCC or CCCVCCC as in English "strengths") or be as simple as a single vowel or a syllabic consonant.
Few known recorded languages preserve simple CV forms which apparently are fully functional roots conveying meaning, i.e. are words—but are not the reductions from earlier complex forms that we find in Mandarin Chinese CV forms, almost always derived with tonal and phonological modifications from Sino-Tibetan *(C)CV(C)(C)/(V) forms.[citation needed]
Suffix and prefix
Monosyllabic languages typically lack suffixes and prefixes that can be added to words to alter their meaning or time. Instead, it is frequently determined by context and/or other words.
For instance in Vietnamese:
English | Vietnamese |
---|---|
I ask | Tôi hỏi |
I asked | Tôi đã hỏi |
I'm asking | Tôi đang hỏi |
English | Vietnamese |
---|---|
explain | giải thích |
unexplain | không giải thích |
explanation | sự/việc giải thích |
English | Vietnamese |
---|---|
I promise. | Tôi hứa. |
I promised yesterday. | Tôi hứa hôm qua. |
I will promise tomorrow. | Tôi hứa ngày mai. |
References
- ^ JSTOR 24774983.
- ISSN 0165-4004.
- JSTOR 409788.
an overwhelmingly high percentage of Chinese segmental morphemes (bound or free) consist of a single syllable; no more than perhaps five percent are longer than one syllable, and only a small handful are shorter. In this sense — in the sense of the favored canonical shape of morphemes — Chinese is indeed monosyllabic
- ISBN 9780585344010..