synthetic (adj.)

A term which characterizes a type of LANGUAGE sometimes distinguished in COMPARATIVE LINGUISTICS using STRUCTURAL (as opposed to DIACHRONIC) criteria, and focusing on the characteristics of the WORD: in synthetic languages, words typically contain more than one MORPHEME (as opposed to ANALYTIC languages, where words are typically monomorphemic). Two types of synthetic language are usually recognized: AGGLUTINATIVE and INFLECTING – with POLYSYNTHETIC sometimes additionally distinguished. Examples include Latin, Greek, Arabic, Turkish. As always in such classifications, the categories are not clear-cut: different languages will display the characteristic of ‘synthesis’ to a greater or lesser degree.

Some use is made in SEMANTICS of the sense of ‘synthetic’ found in logic and philosophy, where a synthetic proposition/sentence is one whose truth can be verified only by using empirical criteria, e.g. It’s raining, Those dogs are fierce. The term contrasts with ANALYTIC, where the internal form of the PROPOSITION makes it necessarily true, without reference to external criteria.