This chapter describes what happens at the structural level to polysynthetic languages during language obsolescence, attrition, and loss. The changes that take place in decaying polysynthetic languages should be distinguished from (a) those occurring in all obsolescent languages regardless of their type, and (b) changes in “healthy” polysynthetic languages. It is shown that the consequences of polysynthetic language decay are primarily manifested in the collapse of morphological complexity, involving the loss of morphological ‘slots’, the reduction in the number of bound morphemes and their substitution by free ones, the ‘fossilization’ of markers and their reanalysis, the deprivation of word formation productivity, the destruction of noun incorporation, and reduction of allomorphy.

A major aim of this study is to provide a full analysis of the 33 numeral classifiers traditionally used in Nivkh. The paper offers a semantic classification of Nivkh numeral classifiers, presents some data on the origin of the classifiers and considers relevant phonological changes. It discusses structural and morphosyntactic properties of numerals with and without classifiers and gives a comparative survey of the decimal system of cardinal numerals in different dialects of Nivkh. Finally, there are some observations on current radical reduction of numeral classifiers, most of which have either completely vanished or reduced the sphere of their use.

This paper discusses the typological evolution of Ghilyak (Nivkh), a small “Palaeo-Asiatic” language family also known as Amuric, distributed in the Amur-Sakhalin region of the Russian Far East. In some respects, especially in the phonology, morphophonology, and phonotactics, Ghilyak shows features absent in the other languages of the region, most of which represent the so-called “Altaic” areal-typological complex. At the same time, Ghilyak shares with its neighbours several “Altaic” features, especially in the morphosyntax, including suffixally marked number and case, as well as nominalized and converbialized verbs. An analysis of the data shows that Ghilyak has been affected by at least two processes of typological transformation which have, either successively or in parallel, both “Altaicized” and “de-Altaicized” its linguistic structure. The reasons of these transformations can be sought in the substratal, adstratal, and superstratal impact of the neighbouring “Altaic” and “non-Altaic” languages. This allows us to place the typological prehistory of Ghilyak in a context shared by other languages of the North Pacific Rim, notably Tungusic and Koreanic.

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