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by bonoboTP 2409 days ago
Agglutinative just means you glue (the -glu- refers to this) pieces (suffixes) at the end of words to express lots of things. This exists in English as well, but in restricted forms. For example blue+ish, quick+ly, blue+ness, look+ed. In an agglutinative language, this is how most of the things are expressed.

For example a totally normal Hungarian word is: szolgáltatásaiért = szolgá+l+tat+ás+a+i+ért = for his/her/its services. Szolga means servant, from Slavic origin. Szolgál is a verb meaning to serve. Szolgáltat means to provide service. Szolgáltatás means service (as in "goods and services", "internet service", etc.). Szolgáltatása means his/her/its service. Szolgáltatásai means his/her/its services. Szolgáltatásaiért means "for his/her/its services".

2 comments

More on this:

szolga = servant

+ l = verb-forming suffix [1]

+ tat = causative suffix [2]

+ ás = gerund-forming suffix, makes a verbal noun from a verb [3]

+ ai = marker for plural possession [4]

+ ért = causal-final suffix, denotes the reason for the action [5]

These suffixes are morphemes you can (with some simple rules) just add to words to achieve the corresponding change in meaning. In CS terms, they're functions that take the input word and make a new one. Each one of the above, used somewhere else:

winter -> to spend the winter: tél + l -> telel

to read -> to make them read: olvas + tat -> olvastat

to read -> the reading: olvas + ás -> olvasás

house -> his houses: ház + ai -> házai

house -> because of, affecting the house: ház + ért -> házért

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-l#Hungarian [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-tat#Hungarian [3] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-%C3%A1s#Hungarian [4] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ai#Hungarian [5] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-%C3%A9rt

Cue Scrabble arguments like “if summit is a verb for reaching the top of the hill, is summit+er ‘one who reaches the top of a hill’?

It’s oddly circular in English that certain word+ending combinations are only accepted if someone else has used it before.