Linguistic typology or language typology is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural and functional features. Linguistics 148 spring term 2010 language universals. A common origin for all of the worlds languages seems to be an obvious explanation for universals. The goal is to be able to classify and explain the diversity of human language in order to show. Analytic languages contain very little inflection, instead relying on features like word order and auxiliary. Linguistic typology took off in its modern form with the groundbreaking research of joseph greenberg, such as, for example, his seminal paper on a crosslinguistic survey of word order leading to a series of implicational universals greenberg 1963. Such regularities within cross linguistic variation and such limits of the observable vari ation are the subject matter of language typology and the study of universals. The introduction to typology that i presented in north dakota was embedded within a course that also presented a formal grammatical framework, so i felt it important to stress what typology has in common with the sort of syntactic theorizing that has come to dominate the linguistic world, particularly in the united states.
Linguistic typology provides a forum for all work of relevance to the study of language typology and crosslinguistic variation. William croft is professor of linguistics at the university of manchester. The main bridgetheoretical hypothesis that makes external evidence from child language relevant for morphological typology is the following. A subfield of linguistics which studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. A crucial difference between typology and formal grammar construction resides in their differing views on language diversity and linguistic theory. Taking the study of universal grammar and linguistic typology the study of the. Entry for the cambridge encyclopedia of the language. Pdf bernard comrie language universals and linguistibookfi. In fact, there are vanishingly few universals of language in the direct. Linguistic typology and formal grammar harvard university. I classifying observed crosslinguistic variation into types phonological, morphological, syntactic. It examines the directions and challenges of current research and shows how these reflect and inform work on the development of linguistic theory. The accessibility hierarchy and relative clauses 731 theoretical issues in fla and sla research.
Somewhat less obviously, the positing of language universals must necessarily be revised and thus become more accurate when the structure of divergent languages is made known. Research in this area of linguistics is closely tied to linguistic typology, and intends to reveal information about how the human brain processes language. Research in this area of linguistics is closely tied to linguistic typology, and intends to reveal information about how the. The oxford handbook of linguistic typology ohlt is the second major and all encompassing. Since its first publication, language universals and linguistic typology has become established as the leading introductory account of one of the most productive areas of linguistics the analysis, comparison, and classification of the common features and forms of the organization of languages. For example, all languages have nouns and verbs, or all spoken languages have consonants and vowels. Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the worlds languages. It welcomes work taking a typological perspective on all domains of the structure of spoken and signed languages, including historical change, language processing, and sociolinguistics. Adopting an approach to the subject pioneered by greenberg and others, bernard. Yet he also made major contributions to sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, phonetics and phonology, morphology, and especially african language studies.
Research in typology, the ways in which languages vary, often overlaps with research in linguistic universals, the ways in which they dont vary wikipedia. Factorial typology accounts for how languages vary, but its equally or even more important as a theory of how they cannot vary. Greenberg, namely the chomskyan and greenbergian approach. His books include studies in typology and diachrony for joseph h. Required and suggested supplementary articles are available in pdf format online, under the individual unit assignments. Typology is concerned with crosslinguistic variation. The oxford handbook of linguistic typology paperback. Introducing language typology language typology identifies similarities and differences among. Pdf on jan 1, 2001, martin haspelmath and others published language typology and language universals. Adopting an approach to the subject pioneered by greenberg and. Since its first publication, language universals and linguistic typology has become established as the leading introductory account of one of the most productive areas of linguisticsthe analysis, comparison, and classification of the common features and forms of the organization of languages. Language typology and the study of language universals are concerned with the diversity of human languages from different, but complementary points of view. Schwink linguistic typology, universality, and the. The identity thesis for language and music october 2009, with jonah katz clickable sound included in the pdf.
A linguistic universal is a statement that is true for all natural languages. In all efforts put into understanding lus and their occurrence, a methodology of categorizing languages according to type was proposed, leading to a new branch of linguistic study known as typology in lus typology as language classification allows for comparison of formal modes among languages, i. The myth of language universals princeton university. Volume 3, grammatical categories and the lexicon by timothy shopen, th. Morphological typology is a way of classifying the languages of the world see linguistic typology that groups languages according to their common morphological structures. Adopting an approach to the subject pioneered by greenberg and others, bernard comrie is. Based on our observations, we try to explain linguistic universals. When we say that turkish is an sov language and english an svo language, this represents no more than a comparison of. Introduction to the language classification, universals, and typologies1 there are lots of languages in the worldbetween 4000 and 8000 depends on what a language is vs. Discusses the use of typology and universals in the reconstruction of protoindoeuropean phonology and morphology. The study of linguistic typology in general has two distinct but complementary goals. Greenberg also attempted to establish methods for quantifying typological studies, in. Find, read and cite all the research you need on researchgate.
This not only gives insights into how the approach might be applied to other languages, but also gives an opportunity to reconsider some of the decisions made in. Generative approaches to syntactic typology george gibbard. Three types of universal elements are posited that are manifested in the grammatical organization of human languages. With respect to the former, all linguists agree, without much hesitation, that natural languages share a number of intriguing similarities and also show fascinating differences.
The first of these is to aid in the search for linguistic universals, which must be regarded as the major overarching project of 20th century scientific linguistics. Language universals and language typology wolfgang raible, university of freiburg i. Joe greenberg was born on may 28th, 1915, in brooklyn, new york, the second of two children. For the substantial findings about universals across languages one must turn to the field of linguistic typology, which has laid bare a bewildering range of diverse languages, where the generalizations are really quite hard to extract. In this paper, we attempt a posthoc reconstruction of the underlying typology of the stanford dependencies representation. It describes what typologists have revealed about language in general and discovered and continue to discover about the richly various. In a clear, logical and readable style, she introduces students not only to the basic concepts and methods in linguistic typology but also to the fundamentals of linguistics. Hence, typologists should comple ment the information put at our disposal by such grammars. Schwink linguistic typology, universality, and the realism of reconstruction 1994. Linguists face the task of accounting for why languages, which. Pdf bernard comrie language universals and linguisti. Greenberg edited with keith denning and suzanne kemmer, 1990, typology and universals cambridge, 1990, syntactic categories and grammatical relations.
A list of 45 linguistic universals formulated by joseph greenberg. Language universals and language typology contents 1 introduction. The discovery of linguistic universals the properties that all languages have in common is a fundamental goal of linguistic research. Available formats pdf please select a format to send. Language universals and linguistic typology journal of. Language universals and linguistic typology, 2nd ed. The need for the documentation of linguistic diversity.
Its subdisciplines include, but are not limited to. Language typology, as will be discussed today, classifies languages into types based on linguistic phenomena. Linguistic typology 1 chapter 4 linguistic typology 4. Linguistics 148 spring term 2010 language universals and. This state of affairs, however, should not be understood to imply that linguistic typology has little to offer for these areas of linguistics cf.
120 1442 61 476 1430 572 355 681 1122 1485 589 1253 1213 1546 728 928 1087 292 260 1622 241 1175 627 382 915 1259 893 225 982 1523 175 1022 1366 1246 656 867 583 7 604 813 426 497 861 812 1063 473 373 1184 74