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Es handelt sich fast um einen sprachhistorischen Topos, wenn davon die Rede ist, dass sich das Deutsche von einer synthetischen zu einer analytischen Sprache entwickelt habe, oder zumindest zu einer analytischeren - oft hat man das Englische im Blick, das den isolierenden Sprachen nahestehen soll. Die Darstellungen zur deutschen Sprachgeschichte sind voll von diesem Topos, und anscheinend ist dieses Konzept intuitiv so eingängig, dass kaum hinterfragt wird, was man denn genau unter synthetischen bzw. analytischen Strukturen zu verstehen habe. In descriptions of German language history, it is almost a commonplace to characterize German as a language developing towards analytic structures (due to, e.g., the rise of articles, of obligatory subject pronouns, or of periphrastic constructions). Obviously opposite developments such as the cliticization of preposition and article, the fragmentation of the ablaut system (leading to an increase of allomorphy) or the diffusion of the morphological umlaut usually are not considered in this debate. In addition, it is never precisely defined what analytic structures exaccly consist of. In this article, which is based on the approach of Schwegler (1990), the phenomenon of analyticity and syntheticity is specified semantically, syntactically, morphologically and phonologically and, at the same time, from a syntagmatic and a paradigmatic perspective. The so-called combinatory expression type which is typical for German inflection is identified as a strategy leading to a high degree of syntheticity. This article concludes that there is not much evidence that German has become a more analytic language.
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