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Linguistic Typology

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{{Linguistic_typology_topics}} '''Linguistic typology''' is the typology that classifies languages by their features. Linguistic typology includes Morphological typology morphological, syntactic (sometimes "morphosyntactic"), and phonological typology. Typological classification of languages contrasts with the more familiar '''genetic''' classification into families that share an ancestor language (see historical linguistics). A genetic class is a language ''family'', while a typological class is a language ''type''. Research on typology often overlaps with research on linguistic universals.

Typological systems

Subject-Verb-Object positioning
One set of types is determined by the basic order of subject, verb, and object in sentences: *Subject Verb Object *Subject Object Verb *Verb Subject Object *Verb Object Subject *Object Subject Verb *Object Verb Subject These are usually abbreviated SVO and so forth, and may be called just "typologies" of the languages to which they apply. Some languages split verbs into an auxiliary and an infinitive or participle, and put the subject or object between them. For instance, German ("Im Wald ''habe'' ich einen Fuchs ''gesehen''" - *"In-the wood have I a fox seen"), Dutch ("Hans ''vermoedde'' dat Jan Piet Marie ''zag leren zwemmen''" - *"Hans suspected that Jan Piet Marie saw teach swim") and Welsh ("''Mae'''r gwirio sillafu wedi'i ''gwblhau''" - *"Is the check spelling after to complete"). In this case, typology is based on the non-analytic tenses (i.e. those sentences in which the verb is not split) or the position of the auxiliary. German is thus SVO/VSO (without "im Wald" the subject would go first) in main clauses and Welsh is VSO (and O would go after the infinitive). Both German and Dutch are often classified as V2 word order V2 languages, as the verb invariantly occurs as the second element of a full clause. Some languages that are Inflected language inflected are difficult to classify in the SVO typological system, because virtually any ordering of verb, object, and subject is possible and correct. All we can do for such languages is find out which word order is the most frequent. For example, in a non-inflected language, the subject and object of a sentence are determined by word order; in an inflected language, the determination may be made by affixes applied to nouns to designate their grammatical roles. In such a system, fixed word order is not necessary to determine meaning (although highly inflected languages do sometimes develop normative word orders). Inflected languages without a fixed word order include Word order in Latin Latin, Polish language Polish, and Greek language Greek.

Ergative-accusative
Another common classification is according to whether a language is Accusative case accusative or Ergative-absolutive language ergative. In a language with noun case cases, the classification depends on whether the subject of an intransitive verb has the same case as the subject or the object of a transitive verb. If a language has no cases, but is SVO or OVS, then the classification depends on whether the subject of an intransitive verb is on the same side as the subject or the object of the transitive verb. Many languages show mixed accusative and ergative behaviour (e.g. ergative morphology marking the verb arguments, on top of an accusative syntax). Other languages (called "active language active languages") have two types of intransitive verbs—some of them ("active verbs") join the subject in the same case as the subject of a transitive verb, and the rest ("stative verbs") join the subject in the same case as the object. Yet other languages behave ergatively only in some contexts (this is called split ergativity, and is usually based on the grammatical person of the arguments or in the tense/aspect of the verb). For example, only some verbs in Georgian language Georgian behave this way, and, as a rule, only while the tense called aorist is used. See also: morphosyntactic alignment.

External links

- Association for Linguistic Typology
- Themes in Typology: Basic Reading List be:Ð¢Ñ‹Ð¿Ð°Ð»Ñ‘Ð³Ñ–Ñ? Ð¼Ð¾Ñž da:Typologi og universalier de:Sprachtypologie es:TipologÃa lingÃ¼Ãstica eo:Lingva tipologio fa:Ú¯ÙˆÙ†Ù‡â€ŒØ´Ù†Ø§Ø³ÛŒ Ø²Ø¨Ø§Ù† fr:Typologie des langues he:×˜×™×¤×•×œ×•×’×™×” ko:ìœ í˜•ë¡ nl:Taaltypologie no:Lingvistisk typologi ja:è¨€èªžé¡žåž‹è«– pl:Typologia jÄ™zykÃ³w pt:Tipologia lingÃ¼Ãstica These are articles about linguistic typology or types of languages. Category:Linguistics de:Kategorie:Linguistische Typologie es:CategorÃa:TipologÃa lingÃ¼Ãstica fr:CatÃ©gorie:Typologie des langues see Linguistic_typology

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