Written French looks like discreet words, because it preserves a lot of historic letters that are no longer pronounced. But if you listen to it, everything all runs together, and the elision can be tricky.

If French were a previously unknown language that anthropologists were studying for the first time with no knowledge of its Latin derivation, they would probably write it down as at least partly polysynthetic.

"spoken French has developed some characteristics of polysythetic languages like those found among Amerindian and Bantu languages such as noun incorporation into the verb and polypersonal agreement (marking the object as well as the subject on the verb). "

Examples in English would be great.

but in French, there are a lot of letters that are no longer pronounced in most environments but are pronounced in certain cases.

For example, "the friend" (male) is l'ami, short for le ami, but no one says or even writes that anymore.

However, "the friends" is les amis, pronounced "le-zami."

"Do you have?" is avez vous?, prounounced "aveh-vu," but "you have" is vous avez, pronounced "vu zaveh."

"She has" is elle a "el a," but "does she have?" is a-t-elle?, in which the "ghost" of the old way of saying "she has" (elle at) shows up.

"We have seen" is nous avons vu ("nu zavo~ (nasal n) vü), but "we have seen it" is nous l'avons vu ("nu lavo~ vü).

"I have seen" is j'ai vu ("zhey vü&quot but "I have seen it" is je l'ai vu" ("zhe lay vü&quot .

It would be hopeless if it weren't for the archaic spelling and the rules about which letters drop when and which ones are elided onto the next word.

spelling to clog things up, which English has too much of, as well.

The letter "s" rarely makes an appearance.