Binder can be used as an adjective or as a noun. In the first case, it qualifies that which has the ability to unite (that is, to ensure that different elements are linked together).
In the field of medicine, according to Digopaul, the substance or object that adheres firmly to the skin and allows binding is named as a binder. The binders, in this framework, can contribute to healing by promoting adherence.
A binder, on the other hand, is a substance that is used to dilute the pigments in a paint or varnish. These binders can not only be mixed with the different pigments, but also provide the texture needed for the paint to be applied and give it resistance after the drying process.
The drying of the paint can be carried out in different ways. There are paints that dry from the evaporation of the solvents present in the binder. In other cases, in addition to this evaporation, a chemical reaction is generated that causes the paint to harden.
The idea of a binder can also be used in the field of linguistics. The agglutinative languages appeal to words that are formed from the union of independent monemes. These terms are made up of affixes and lexemes that have already defined grammatical or referential meanings.
The concept of monema, meanwhile, refers to an abstract transformation or an irreducible sequence of phonemes that generates modifications in the regular and systematic meaning where it is applied or added. In other words, we can say that it is the smallest unit of meaning of a language. Broadly speaking, we can speak of two types of monema, which are the following: lexeme, with autonomous and concrete meaning; morpheme, which may or may not depend on union with another lexeme to acquire meaning.
Therefore, in a binder language, the affixes are located in a specific place according to the meaning you want to create with the root. In fusion languages, on the other hand, affixes merge with each other and take different forms according to the rest of the morphemes.
The term binder language dates back to 1836, when it was coined by the scholar known as Wilhelm von Humboldt, one of those responsible for the founding of the current Humboldt University in Berlin. Thanks to this distinction between these languages and the fusionantes, it is possible to classify them according to their morphology.
However, despite the existence of these two categories, there is no clear line that separates them, but rather the most common way of differentiating one from the other is paying attention to their trend. To say with certainty that a language is a binding type, we must verify that it meets the following requirements:
* that their words can be segmented into morphemes that cannot be altered by the adjacent ones;
* that each morph (the phonic expression of morphemes) performs only one grammatical category.
In the fusion languages, among which is Spanish, we can observe the opposite. For example, our form of denial in- changes depending on the rest of the word which is part: although it is in- in the case of “untouchable” becomes im- in “unthinkable” and go- to “irreplaceable ».
In general, in the agglutinating languages it can be seen that the suffixes are agglutinated to the roots (which are usually monosyllabic), and thus it is possible to specify or modify the meaning. Some examples of current binding languages are Japanese, Guarani, Euskera, Quechua, Swahili and Turkish.
