nonagglutinative
|non-ag-glu-ti-na-tive|
🇺🇸
/nɑnəˈɡluːtɪnətɪv/
🇬🇧
/nɒnəˈɡluːtɪnətɪv/
not using agglutination (in morphology)
Etymology
'nonagglutinative' originates from the English prefix 'non-' + the adjective 'agglutinative', where 'non-' meant 'not' and 'agglutinative' ultimately derives from Latin 'adglutinare' (see below) meaning 'to glue together'.
'agglutinative' changed from Latin 'adglutinare' (from 'ad-' + 'gluten' meaning 'to/ toward' + 'glue') into Late Latin/Medieval Latin forms and via French influences into English as 'agglutinative'; English formed 'non-' + 'agglutinative' to express the negation.
Initially related to the literal sense of 'being glued together' (physically or conceptually), the term 'agglutinative' was specialized in linguistics to mean 'forming words by affixation'; thus 'nonagglutinative' came to mean 'not using agglutination in morphology'.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Adjective 1
not agglutinative; describing a language or morphological system that does not form words primarily by agglutination (i.e., by concatenating discrete affixes to stems), but instead uses other strategies such as fusional morphology, isolating structure, or analytic constructions.
Many typologists classify English as relatively nonagglutinative compared with languages like Turkish.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Last updated: 2025/10/14 12:21