Is Arabic an Analytic Language?

The debate in linguistics on the relevance of the distinction between synthetic & analytic languages is outlined, examining proposals by August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1971), Wilhelm von Humboldt (1963), Andre Meillet (1924), Harald Weinrich (1962), & H. Geckeler (1985). Schlegel is recognized as a pioneer of researching this distinction, for which he applied five criteria: (1) verb-preposed personal pronouns, (2) noun-preposed articles, (3) the presence of auxiliary verbs in conjugation, (4) prepositional syntagmas, & (5) the use of adverbs in adjectival gradation. Weinrich's critique of the synthetic vs analytic distinction & its replacement by the post- vs predetermined languages dichotomy are considered. Schlegel's criteria are applied to investigate whether Arabic & German are synthetic/postdetermined or analytic/predetermined languages. It is found that both are analytic, however, German has more analytic features than Arabic; the former favors predetermination more than the latter. It is argued that the synthetic vs analytic language distinction is important for linguistic research & both Schlegel's & Weinrich's approaches are valid. 7 References. Z. Dubiel