Linguistic Typology (W10)

The following morphological classification of languages is mainly due to Schlegel

(a) affixal (b) inflectional (c) no structure

Languages can be classified on the basis of many different parameters. - Should not be confused with typological classification

- Genetic relationship -geographic location - demographic features, e.g. languages with over 100 million speakers

important differences:

1. G identifies SVO as the most dominant type, 2. Object initial languages only appear in T 3. VSO languages range from constituting one-tenth of the world's languages to one-fifth

How to overcome biases and construct representative samples

1. The first method is based on the frequency of language families.

Properties of implicational universals

1. They can be absolute or non-absolute 2. They are unidirectional 3. They introduce four logical possibilities

There are three significant propositions packed into this definition

1. Typology involves cross-linguistic comparison. 2. A typological approach involves classification of either (a) components of languages or (b) languages. 3. Typology is concerned with classification based on formal features of language.

How to overcome biases and construct representative samples 2

2. Another method for constructing a representative sample of languages is to gather languages that bear only very distant or no genetic relationship and are not from the same culture area. In this way, a sample of independent languages is built that includes roughly 50 languages.

How to overcome biases and construct representative samples 3

3.Grouping the general into five large geographical areas. A certain linguistic pattern is statistically significant (i.e., should be considered a universal), if it is present in the genera of each of the five areas.

Universals

All languages have consonants & vowels All languages make a distinction between nouns and verbs All languages have ways to form questions

Implicational

An implicational universal has a precondition: If X, then Y.

Noam Chomsky

Brute observation of speaker behavior is a poor guide in linguistics and underneath the apparent diversity we can discover universal principles of human languages.

typological claim

English is typical in placing relative clauses after the nouns which they modify. This is a typological claim. It implies that the structure of the relative clause has been examined in a cross-linguistic perspective

Linguistic typology 2

First, attention is directed toward a particular construction that arises in language Second, using cross-linguistic data, all the types of these specific phenomena are determined. The goal is to understand how this facet of language operates by identifying the degrees of similarity and the degrees of variance that one finds among languages.

Linguistic typology 3

Formal features are features of the sound system of language (phonology), grammar (morphology and syntax), lexicon, and meaning (semantics).

A brief history of typology 2 majors figures

Friedrich von Schlegel Wilhelm von Humboldt

Greenberg

He argued that the proper task of typology is not comparing languages per se but instead comparing constructions. He developed a strategy to measure numerically both the degree and the types of morphology present in a language

Greenberg's Universal 5:

If a language has dominant SOV order and the genitive follows the governing noun, then the adjective likewise follows the noun.

JAP:SOV

In Japanese, by contrast, the usual order is first subject (S), then object (O), then verb (V).

English: SVO

In an English sentence, the usual order is for the subject (S) to come first, then the verb (V), then the object (O).

(a) affixal

In an affixal language, a series of morphemes are affixed to a lexical head. There is often a one-to-one correspondence between the affixes and grammatical meaning

(b) Inflectional

In an inflectional language, the affixes that are employed typically contain a great deal of semantic information

Different ways of accounting for the unity of language: (a) Formal-generativist

In the formal-generativist tradition, the unity of language is (mainly) due to the fact that humans are genetically endowed with a "language faculty" -Noam Chomsky

(c) "no structure"

In this type of languages, there is little or no affixation on the words.

General properties that are common to all human languages

No languages is known to relate sentences by inverting the order of sentences of indefinite length. Variations are constricted to a particular structure.

American structuralists

The American structuralists continued to emphasize morphology in their research on languages They rejected the idea that differences in morphological form revealed differences in the "inner form" of the language

What is meant by typology in the context of linguistics?

The classification of languages or components of languages based on shared formal characteristics

historical-comparative approach

The major goals of linguistics were seen as understanding the processes that gave rise to language change and determining the historical relationship among languages

Restrictions in differing to each other

There are basic principles that govern the structure of all languages, these language universal regulate what is possible and what is impossible in the structure of a language.

Linguistic typology 1

Typology involves cross-linguistic comparison. All typological research is based on comparisons between languages.

Humboldt

Viewed the function of language as not limited simply to representing or communicating existing ideas and concepts but as "formative organ of thought" and thus instrumental also in the production of new concepts that would not come into being without it.

Non-absolute universals

admit exceptions. They are properties of languages that usually hold true.

Saussure

argued that facts about the linguistic system should be distinguished from facts about linguistic evolution.

Absolute universals

assumed to be true of all languages at all times, even for the hundreds of languages for which there is no written description and for many hundreds of others that have become extinct without leaving behind any record.

Early typologist believed

believed in the abstract organic unity of language Their main focus was morphology and word- formation.

Linguistic typology

deals with the typology of language systems - It is a branch of linguistics

sprachbund characteristics

linguistic area, convergence area, diffusion area or language crossroads, is a group of languages that have become similar in some way because of geographical proximity and language contact.

Jakobson

pointed out that the vowel inventory and consonant inventory in languages are connected in predictable ways The main insight is based on the idea that certain characteristics of language are inherently linked.

Synchronic

studying language at a particular point in time- a point not necessarily fixed in the present.

Diachronic

studying language through time - taking into account its changes from one point in time to a later one.

Development of structuralist approaches

• Structuralists assumed modularity - language is a self-contained module interacting with other modules in the mind.