TYPOLOGY

Linguistic Typology 11 (1), pp. 115-117, 2007

Typology in its modern form is connected with the search for universals. This works to the advantage of certain types of questions, those which allow a more or less coherent answer for any language. Phonology, syntax, and semantics are usually the starting point, and such topics as phonological inventories, word order, and the range of expressible semantic distinctions constitute the bulk of research. These also form the core questions of general linguistics, so this research emphasis is only to be expected. Conversely, one area that receives relatively little attention from typologists is morphology. This too is hardly surprising: of all the aspects of language, morphology is the most language-specific and hence least generalizable. Indeed, even the very presence of a meaningful morphological component is language-specific.

Linguistics , 2021

In their daily life, humans interact and communicate with the exterior environment, they express themselves and participate in their society using a structured system of communication called 'The language'. Language is important. it allows people to share ideas, thoughts, and feelings with each other. So the ability to talk to your friends, your partner, or your family, required having a shared language, which is necessary for these types of interactions. The language is based on so many methods: oral expression 'speech and gesture' (conventional spoken system), sign (the Manuel system) and the visual representation of verbal communication (the writing system); therefore; the human language is considered as a complex phenomenon because it doesn't use a single mode of transmission like the animal communication (sight and sound). Due to the vastness of the research context, The scientific study of language which is called linguistics (the Critical examinations of languages) appeared. since the ancient Greek civilization, so many debates had been placed about the origin of the language under the name of 'philosophy of language'. so many definitions of 'language' were delivered by so many authors and reference books. According to Aristotle, language is a speech sound produced by human beings to express their ideas, emotions, thoughts, desires, and feelings. in another definition, Sapir saw that language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires through a system of voluntarily produced sounds. followed by many scholars and linguists, other definitions appeared which added new bases and terms, and studied the subject of language from other perspectives.

This course explores the core assumptions and methods of the field of linguistic typology, describing, classifying, and defining the relationships between forms and functions in the world’s estimated 7,000 languages. This view of typology is based on the assumption that linguistic diversity needs to be studied in a cross-linguistic context, and this study must be based on a reliable empirical database coming from solid descriptive work. Topics will include a review of typologies based on word order and morphology and an examination a variety of grammatical and conceptual categories and constructions including case, clause structures, parts of speech, spatial language, predicative and inflectional systems, among others. We will examine a wide variety of languages from across the globe and take interfaces with language change and language documentation into consideration. Against the background of a corpus of data, we will examine the limits of linguistic variation and the explanations proposed for typological patterns, including information management, cognitive processing, and interactional language use and examine the relationship of typology to genetic and areal linguistics. At the end of the course, students will have a comprehensive understanding of cross-linguistic variation, theoretical approaches, and contemporary issues and debates within the field of linguistic typology.

The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces, 2007

According to the traditional view, the relation between morphology and syntax is the following: while morphology builds up word forms-typically by combining roots with other roots and with affixes, but also by applying other operations to them, syntax takes fully inflected words as input and combines them into phrases and sentences. The division of labour between morphology and syntax is thus perfect: morphology only operates below the word level whereas syntax only operates above the word level.

Projecting Morphology (edited by L Sadler and A Spencer), 2004