The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Typology

by Song, Jae Jung

• ISBN13: 9780199281251
• ISBN10: 0199281254
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-11-19
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book provides a critical state-of-the-art overview of work in linguistic typology. It examines the directions and challenges of current research and shows how these reflect and inform work on the development of linguistic theory. It describes what typologists have revealed about language in general and discovered (and continue to discover) about the richly various ways in which meaning and expression are achieved in the world's languages. Typological research extends across all branches of linguistics. The degree to which the characteristics of language are universal or particular is crucial to the understanding of language and its relation to human nature and culture. This book is an essential source of reference for linguists of all theoretical persuasions. It is a vital companion for all those working in linguistic typology or undertaking linguistic fieldwork on one or more languages.

Author Biography

Jung Jae Song is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Otago. His books include Causatives and Causation: A Universal-Typological Perspective, 1996; Case, Typology and Grammar, 1998, co-edited with Anna Siewierska; Linguistic Typology: Morphology and Syntax, ; The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context, 2005; and Frontiers of Korean Language Acquisition, 2006. He has held visiting appointments with Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig), and La Trobe University (Melbourne).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. x
The Contributors	p. xi
List of Abbreviations	p. xvii
Setting the Stage	p. 1
Foundations: History, Theory, and Method
The (Early) History of Linguistic Typology	p. 9
The Pioneers of Linguistic Typology: From Gabelentz to Greenberg	p. 25
Linguistic Typology and the Study of Language	p. 43
Explaining Language Universals	p. 69
The Problem of Cross-linguistic Identification	p. 90
Language Sampling	p. 100
Theoretical Dimensions of Linguistic Typology
Markedness: Iconicity, Economy, and Frequency	p. 131
Competing Motivations	p. 148
Categories and Prototypes	p. 166
Implicational Hierarchies	p. 190
Processing Efficiency and Complexity in Typological Patterns	p. 206
Language Universals and Linguistic Knowledge	p. 227
Empirical Dimensions of Linguistic Typology
Word Order Typology	p. 253
Word Classes	p. 280
Case-Marking Typology	p. 3?3 Beatrice
Person Marking	p. 322
Transitivity Typology	p. 346
Voice Typology	p. 368
Grammatical Relations Typology	p. 399
Typology of Tense, Aspect, and Modality Systems	p. 445
Syntactic Typology	p. 465
Morphological Typology	p. 487
Semantic Typology	p. 504
Typology of Phonological Systems	p. 534
Linguistic Typology in a Wider Context
Linguistic Typology and Historical Linguistics	p. 551
Linguistic Typology and Language Contact	p. 568
Linguistic Typology and First Language Acquisition	p. 591
Linguistic Typology and Second Language Acquisition	p. 618
Linguistic Typology and Language Documentation	p. 634
Linguistic Typology and Formal Grammar	p. 650
References	p. 666
Author Index	p. 729
Language Index	p. 738
Subject Index	p. 744
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