TYPOLOGY AND

UNIVERSALS

TYPOLOGY

borrowed from the field of biology and means something like ‘taxonomy’ or ‘classification’

the study of linguistic systems recurring patterns of linguistic systems

UNIVERSALS typological generalizations based on these recurring patterns

CONTENTS

Definition of typology

Notions of classifications Pidgins creole mixed languages sign languages

Definition of universals unrestricted: absolute and statistical implicational universals

Motivations for language universals

WHAT IS TYPOLOGY?

Linguistic Typology : concerns itself with the study of structural differences and

similarities between languages

the study and interpretation of linguistic or language types

the study and interpretation of types of linguistic systems

involves comparison of linguistic systems between languages

Linguistic Typology:

Synchronic:

A comparison of languages contemporary to each other

Diachronic:

A comparison of languages at various stages of their historical development

Grammatical functions the words in a sentence have depend on

how they are ordered with respect to each other.

a. John called Mary.

b. Mary called John.

Differences in tone is an absolutely essential requirement of human language.

Mandarin (Sino-Tibetan (Chinese): China)

a. yī ‘cloth’ b. yí ‘to suspect’

c. yĭ ‘chair’ d. yì ‘meaning’

Copying parts of the word, a process called reduplication, is an essential requirement for a language to be able to form adverbs from adjectives.

màn ‘slow’ màn-màn-de ‘slowly’

The order of the elements in the clause is not rigid.

Modern Greek (Indo-European (Greek): Greece):a. o skilos kiniyinuse ti yata

the dog chased the cat

b. kiniyinuse o skilos ti yata

chased the dog the cat

c. o skilos ti yata kiniyinuse

the dog the cat chased

d. ti yata o skilos kiniyinuse

the cat the dog chased

e. ti yata kiniyinuse o skilos

the cat chased the dog

f. kiniyinuse ti yata o skilos

chased the cat the dog

the dog chased the cat.

Linguistic typology involves cross-linguistics comparisons

Typology: map the patterns serve as a guide to analysis of languages.

Once there is a clear and precise classification of occurring patterns, a new pattern may be evaluated with respect to existing ones. In diachronic [i.e. historical] analysis, where pieces of the puzzle (living speakers, phonetic studies of them, etc) may often be missing,

typological work can be particularly useful in guiding the analysis in one direction over another. (Blevins 2007: 110)

CLASSIFICATIONS

It is a central concept in typology

Primarily based on the elements that make up the structure of languages

LANGUAGE CLASSIFICATIONS (RELEVANT FOR TYPOLOGY)

1. Size

The languages of the world vary radically with respect to how many speakers they have.

2. Social Factors

Age, gender, or level of education of the speakers, or the formality of the situation the language is used in.

(CROSS-LINGUISTIC SURVEYS)GENELOGICAL AFFILIATION

1. Location

It is grouped languages by countries they are spoken in.

2. Origin

Languages that descend from a common ancestor are grouped together into one language family.

PIDGINS, CREOLES AND MIXED LANGUAGES

Pidgins, creoles and other so-called contact languages form a group of languages that does not easily fit in any genealogical classification.

Pidgins, creoles and other kinds of contact languages have more than one parent.

PIDGIN a language that emerges when groups of people are in close contact and

need to communicate but have no language in common. (slaves, workers.)

CREOLE typically a pidgin or jargon that has become the native language of a

community.

MIXED LANGUAGE A different type of contact language. Emerged in situations of community bilingualism.

SIGN LANGUAGES languages where the communication is achieved by using the hands, upper

body and face to produce signs.

WHAT ARE UNIVERSALS?

Language universals:

refer to properties that hold for all or most known human languages.

refer to quantitative statements that are based on cross-linguistic studies.

Typological universals are empirically established generalizations that describe distributional patterns for particular grammatical phenomena across languages. (These distributional patterns are regarded as universals to the extent that they are found in all languages or in a statistically significant number of languages. (Cristofaro 2010:227)

UNRESTRICTED UNIVERSALS: ABSOLUTE AND STATISTICAL

Absolute universals: universals that hold for every single human language, without

exceptions, the assumption is that the feature must be present in any and all

languages.

a. All spoken languages have vowels

b. All languages have ways of forming questions

Statistical (or probabilistic) universals

hold for most, but not all, languages; the assumption is that the feature is likely to be present in a

language.

In most languages the singular is the base form and the plural is the overtly marked form (but not Aari (Afro-Asiatic (South Omotic): Ethiopia), which has no plural but an overtly marked singulative; (Hayward 1990:444)Most spoken languages employ a rising intonation for yes-no questions (but not Hawai‘i Creole English, where yes-no questions have falling intonation; based on own fieldwork)

IMPLICATIONAL UNIVERSALS (RESTRİCTED, ALSO TYPOLOGİCAL)

State that if a language has property A, then it also has property B, but not necessarily the other way round.

May also be absolute or statistical.

a. If a language has the phoneme /t/ then it also has the phoneme /k/ (Pericliev 2008:206)

b. If a language has reflexives for the (first and second person, it will also have reflexives for the third person (Comrie 1989:19)

Implicational universals can be either one-way or two-way predictions.

A bidirectional implicational universal: is a prediction that works two ways. What this means is that we

can hypothesize that if a language has X, then it also has Y, and conversely, if it has Y, then it also has X.

A unidirectional implicational universal

is a hypothesis that only holds one way. If in a language the relative clause precedes the noun, then it is usually has an object-verb word order while if a language has verb object word order, then the relative clause usually follows the noun (Dryer 2011)

ON MOTİVATİONS FOR LANGUAGE UNİVERSALS

Language internal explanations are based on

the structural system of the language in question. An example of a language internal explanation is the notion of

iconicity, with the principle that the formal expressions in a language express semantic notions.

Language external explanations are based on factors outside the structural system of the language. Examples of external explanations for language universals are the

roles of discourse, processing and economy.

Discourse:

refers to a connected series of utterances by speakers.

Economy:

refers to two processes:frequently used elements tend to get reduced, or, put differently, the length of a word correlates with how often it is used.elements that are highly predictable tend to get eliminated.

Processing:

refers to the cognitive effort it takes to comprehend linguistic structures.

CONCLUSION

Typology differences and similarities between linguistic systems patterns of distributions of linguistic structures

Comparison of linguistic types may be either synchronic or diachronic. Classification is a central concept in linguistic typology. Due to their socio-historical background, pidgins, creoles and mixed languages are not easily

classified genealogically. Universals are typological generalizations based on cross-linguistic surveys Absolute universals hypothesize that a linguistic phenomenon is found (or is lacking) in all human

languages. Statistical universals hypothesize that a linguistic phenomenon is found (or lacking) in most human

languages. Implicational universals are hypotheses of the “if X, then Y” kind and can be absolute or statistical. Implicational universals can be bidirectional Or they can be unidirectional. There may be various motivations for language universals, both internal, such as iconicity, and

external, such as cognitive processing, economy or coherent discourse.