308 Pages
by
Routledge
This volume presents an overview of the field of linguistic typology, its history, methodology, theoretical foundations and achievements. It focuses on the major directions of typological research and demonstrates how they reflect and inform the study of language as an academic enterprise.
1. General introduction: The scope and the brief history of linguistic typology Part I: Precursors 1. The pioneers of linguistic typology: From Gabelentz to Greenberg Part II: Variety of current approaches 2. Typology in the 21st century: Major current developments 3. Linguistic typology: A short history and some current issues 4. New approaches to cluster analysis of typological indices Part III: Typology and theoretical linguistics 5. Typological evidence and universal grammar 6. On the relationship of typology to theoretical syntax Part IV: Typology and diachrony 7. Language change and universals 8. Universals constrain change: Change results in typological generalizations 9. Competing motivation models and diachrony: What evidence for what motivations? Part V: Typology and other subfields of linguistics 10. Processing typology and why psychologists need to know about it 11. Language documentation and language typology 12. Contributions of linguistic typology to psycholinguistics 13. Typology and coevolutionary linguistics
