TYPOLOGY AND UNIVERSALS

1. TYPOLOGY AND UNIVERSALS

2. TYPOLOGY • borrowed from the fieldof biology and means something like ‘taxonomy’ or ‘classification’ • the study of linguistic systems • recurringpatternsof linguistic systems UNIVERSALS • typological generalizations based on these recurring patterns

3. CONTENTS • Definition of typology • Notions of classifications • Pidgins • creole • mixedlanguages • signlanguages • Definition of universals • unrestricted: absoluteandstatistical • implicationaluniversals • Motivationsforlanguageuniversals

4. WHAT IS TYPOLOGY? LinguisticTypology: • concerns itself with the study of structuraldifferencesand 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

5. LinguisticTypology: • Synchronic: Acomparison of languages contemporary to each other • Diachronic: Acomparison of languages at various stages of their historical development

6. Grammatical functions the words in a sentencehave depend on how they are ordered with respect to each other. a. John called Mary. b. Mary called John.

7. Differencesin tone is an absolutely essential requirement of human language. Mandarin (Sino-Tibetan (Chinese): China) a. yī ‘cloth’ b. yí ‘tosuspect’ c. yĭ ‘chair’ d. yì ‘meaning’ • Copyingparts of the word, a process calledreduplication, is an essential requirement for a language to be able to form adverbs from adjectives. màn‘slow’ màn-màn-de ‘slowly’

8. The order of the elements in the clause is not rigid. Modern Greek (Indo-European (Greek): Greece): a. o skiloskiniyinuse ti yata the dog chased the cat b. kiniyinuse o skilos ti yata chased the dog the cat c. o skilos ti yatakiniyinuse the dog the cat chased d. ti yata o skiloskiniyinuse the cat the dog chased e. ti yatakiniyinuse o skilos the cat chased the dog f. kiniyinuse ti yata o skilos chased the cat the dog the dog chased the cat.

9. Linguistictypology • involvescross-linguisticscomparisons Typology: • map the patterns • serve as a guide to analysis of languages. Once there is a clear and precise classificationof 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)

10. CLASSIFICATIONS • It is a centralconcept in typology • Primarilybased on the elements that make up the structure of languages

11. LANGUAGE CLASSIFICATIONS (RELEVANT FOR TYPOLOGY) 1. Size The languages of the world vary radically with respect to how many speakers they have. 2. SocialFactors Age, gender, or level of education of the speakers, or the formality of the situation the language is used in.

12. (cross-linguistic surveys)GENELOGICAL AFFILIATION 1. Location Itis groupedlanguagesbycountriestheyarespoken in. 2. Origin Languages that descend from a common ancestor are grouped together into one language family.

13. pidgins, creoles and mixed languages • Pidgins, creoles and other so-called contact languagesform a group of languages that does not easily fit in any genealogical classification. • Pidgins, creoles and other kinds of contact languages have more than oneparent.

14. 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 differenttype of contact language. • Emerged in situations of community bilingualism. SIGN LANGUAGES • languages where the communication is achievedbyusing the hands, upper body and face to produce signs.

15. 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. (Thesedistributional patterns are regarded as universals to theextent that they are found in all languages or in a statistically significant number of languages. (Cristofaro 2010:227)

16. 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

17. 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), whichhas 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)

18. IMPLICATIONAL UNIVERSALS (Restricted, alsotypological) • Statethatif a language has property A, then it also has property B, but not necessarilytheotherwayround. • May also be absoluteorstatistical. a. If a language has the phoneme /t/ then it also has thephoneme /k/ (Pericliev2008:206) b. If a language has reflexivesfor the (firstand second person, it will also havereflexivesfor the third person (Comrie1989:19)

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 alanguage has X, then it also has Y, andconversely, 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, thenit is usually has anobject-verb word order while if a language has verbobject word order, then therelativeclause usually follows thenoun (Dryer 2011)

20. on motivationsforlanguageuniversals • Language internal explanations are based on the structural system of the language in question. • An example of a language internalexplanation is the notion of iconicity, withtheprinciple that the formal expressions in a language express semantic notions. • Languageexternalexplanationsare based on factors outside the structural system of the language. • Examples of external explanations for language universals are the roles of discourse,processingandeconomy.

21. Discourse: refers to a connected series of utterancesbyspeakers. Economy: refers to two processes: • frequently used elements tend to getreduced, 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 tocomprehend linguistic structures.

22. CONCLUSION • Typology • differencesand similarities between linguistic systems • patterns of distributions of linguistic structures • Comparison of linguistic types may be eithersynchronicordiachronic. • Classificationis a centralconcept in linguistictypology. • Due to their socio-historical background, pidgins, creoles and mixed languages are not easilyclassifiedgenealogically. • Universals are typological generalizations based on cross-linguistic surveys • Absoluteuniversalshypothesize that a linguistic phenomenon is found (or is lacking) in all human languages. • Statistical universals hypothesize that a linguisticphenomenon is found (or lacking) in mosthuman languages. • Implicational universals are hypotheses of the “if X, then Y” kind and can beabsoluteorstatistical. • Implicational universals can be bidirectional • Ortheycan 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.