Linguistic typology - Article Index

Encyclopedia - Linguistic Typology: Encyclopedia Ii - Linguistic Typology - Typological Systems
Linguistic typology - Subject-Verb-Object positioning. One set of types is determined by the basic order of subject, verb, and object i...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Word Order In Latin: Encyclopedia - Word Order In Latin
Latin differs from languages like English in that it uses many noun cases which are declined in such a way that they are nearly all diffe...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Synthetic Language: Encyclopedia Ii - Synthetic Language - Forms Of Synthesis
There are several ways in which a language can exhibit synthetic characteristics: Synthetic language - Derivational synthesis. In deriv...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Word Order: Encyclopedia - Word Order
Word order, in linguistic typology, refers to the order in which words appear in sentences across different languages. In many languages,...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Synthetic Language: Encyclopedia Ii - Synthetic Language - Degrees Of Synthesis
In order to demonstrate the "continuum" nature of the isolating-synthetic-polysynthetic classification, some examples are shown below: S...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Analytic Language: Encyclopedia - Analytic Language
An analytic language (or isolating language) is a language in which the vast majority of morphemes are free morphemes and considered to b...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Language: Encyclopedia - Language
A language is a system of symbols, generally known as lexemes and the rules by which they are manipulated. The word language is also used...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Grammar: Encyclopedia - Grammar
Grammar is the study of rules governing the use of language. The set of rules governing a particular language is also called the grammar...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Verb Subject Object: Encyclopedia - Verb Subject Object
Verb Subject Object—commonly used in its abbreviated form VSO—is a term in linguistic typology. It represents one type of languages w...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Linguistics: Encyclopedia - Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and someone who engages in this study is called a linguist or linguistician. Lingu...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Theta Role: Encyclopedia Ii - Theta Role - Major Theta Roles
Here is a list of the major theta roles, using the example sentence, Debra broke the window with a bat and Jack fell asleep. The agent (...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Pro-drop Language: Encyclopedia Ii - Pro-drop Language - English
English is considered a non-pro-drop language. Nonetheless, subject pronouns are almost always dropped in commands (e.g., Come here); and...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - V2 Word Order: Encyclopedia Ii - V2 Word Order - Classification
V2 word order is primarily associated with Germanic languages, English being a notable exception. (French, a Romance language had a V2 st...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Morphosyntactic Alignment: Encyclopedia Ii - Morphosyntactic Alignment - Ergative Vs. Accusative
Ergative languages are in contrast to nominative-accusative languages (such as English), which treat the object of transitive verbs disti...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - East Asian Languages: Encyclopedia Ii - East Asian Languages - Areal Linguistic Features
Some other areal features partially coincide with or extend beyond the CJKV area: East Asian languages - Morphology. Monosyllabic morp...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Centum-satem Isogloss: Encyclopedia Ii - Centum-satem Isogloss - Proto-indo-european Dorsals
The Centum-Satem isogloss discusses the treatement of the three dorsal rows reconstructed for PIE, *kʷ, *gʷ, *gʷʰ (labiovelars), *k, ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Morphological Typology: Encyclopedia Ii - Morphological Typology - Synthetic Languages
In synthetic languages, words are formed by a root and a number of morphemes added to it. The morphemes might or might not be distinguish...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Elamite Language: Encyclopedia Ii - Elamite Language - Relations To Other Language Families
Elamite was not related to the neighboring Semitic languages, or Indo-European languages, and although some call Elamite the "sister" to ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Linguistics: Encyclopedia Ii - Linguistics - Dichotomies And Language
The study of linguistics can be thought of along three major axes, the endpoints of which are described below: Synchronic vs Diachronic:...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Language: Encyclopedia Ii - Language - Human Languages
Human languages are usually referred to as natural languages, and the science studying them is linguistics. Making a principled distincti...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Grammar: Encyclopedia Ii - Grammar - Development Of Grammars
Grammars evolve through usage and human population separations. With the advent of written representations, formal rules about language u...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - East Asian Languages: Encyclopedia Ii - East Asian Languages - Linguistic Relationships
These features strongly contrast with major language groups bordering East and Southeast Asia such as Australian languages, Indo-Pacific ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Morphosyntactic Alignment: Encyclopedia Ii - Morphosyntactic Alignment - Semantics & Grammatical Relations
Semantic roles (aka theta-roles): Agent Patient Grammatical relations: Subject Object Oblique Transitive verbs usually have two argum...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Language: Encyclopedia Ii - Language - Animal Nonhuman Language
While the term animal languages is widely used, most researchers agree that they are not as complex or expressive as human language; a mo...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - East Asian Languages: Encyclopedia Ii - East Asian Languages - Cjk Area
The CJK area refers to Chinese, Japanese and Korean, the languages with large amounts of vocabulary of Chinese origin, and which are or w...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Language: Encyclopedia Ii - Language - The Study Of Language
The oldest surviving written grammar for any language is believed to be the Tolkāppiyam (தொல்காப்பியம்), a boo...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Morphosyntactic Alignment: Encyclopedia Ii - Morphosyntactic Alignment - Milewski's Typology
Less widely known yet worth mention is a similar classification proposed in the 1960's by the Polish linguist Tadeusz Milewski. In this c...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Language: Encyclopedia Ii - Language - Properties Of Language
Languages are not just sets of symbols. They also contain a grammar, or system of rules, used to manipulate the symbols. While a set of s...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - V2 Word Order: Encyclopedia Ii - V2 Word Order - V2 Effect
The V2 effect is clearly demonstrated in the following Dutch sentences: It may seem that the verb is in the third position in the last ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Pro-drop Language: Encyclopedia Ii - Pro-drop Language - Impersonal Constructions
In some cases (impersonal constructions), a proposition has no referent at all. Pro-drop languages deal naturally with these, whereas man...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Linguistics: Encyclopedia Ii - Linguistics - Diachronic Linguistics
Whereas the core of theoretical linguistics is concerned with studying languages at a particular point in time (usually the present), dia...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Linguistics: Encyclopedia Ii - Linguistics - Applied Linguistics
Whereas theoretical linguistics is concerned with finding and describing generalities both within particular languages and among all lang...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - East Asian Languages: Encyclopedia Ii - East Asian Languages - Cjkv Area
The CJKV area refers to Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese, the languages with large amounts of vocabulary of Chinese origin, and w...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Linguistics: Encyclopedia Ii - Linguistics - Prescription And Description
Research currently performed under the name "linguistics" is purely descriptive; linguists seek to clarify the nature of language without...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Linguistics: Encyclopedia Ii - Linguistics - Speech Versus Writing
Most contemporary linguists work under the assumption that spoken language is more fundamental, and thus more important to study than wri...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Linguistics: Encyclopedia Ii - Linguistics - Important Linguists And Schools Of Thought
Early scholars of linguistics include Jakob Grimm, who devised the principle of consonantal shifts in pronunciation known as Grimm's Law ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Morphological Typology: Encyclopedia Ii - Morphological Typology - Analytic Languages
In analytic languages there are little or no morphological changes. Words tend not to be inflected. Grammatical categories are indicated ...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Linguistics: Encyclopedia Ii - Linguistics - Levels Of Theoretical Linguistics
Theoretical linguistics is often divided into a number of separate areas, to be studied more or less independently. The following divisio...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Theta Role: Encyclopedia Ii - Theta Role - Relationship Of Syntax To Theta Roles
In languages such as English which rely heavily on word order and use frequent passivization, identification of theta roles from merely s...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Centum-satem Isogloss: Encyclopedia Ii - Centum-satem Isogloss - Origins Of The Sound Change
In the 19th century, it was sometimes assumed that the centum-satem isogloss was the original dialect division of the Indo-European langu...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Centum-satem Isogloss: Encyclopedia Ii - Centum-satem Isogloss - Centum
In the Centum languages, the palato-velar consonants merged with plain velars (*k, *g, *gʰ). Most of the Centum languages preserve Proto...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Centum-satem Isogloss: Encyclopedia Ii - Centum-satem Isogloss - Satem
The Satem languages show the characteristic change of the so-called Proto-Indo-European palato-velars (*ḱ, *ǵ, *ǵʰ) into affricate a...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Linguistics: Encyclopedia Ii - Linguistics - Contextual Linguistics
Contextual linguistics is where the discipline of linguistics interacts with other academic disciplines. Whereas in core theoretical ling...   » Read the article

Encyclopedia - Morphological Typology: Encyclopedia Ii - Morphological Typology - Polysynthetic Languages
In 1836, Wilhelm von Humboldt added a third category: polysynthetic languages. (The term polysynthesis was first used in linguistics by P...   » Read the article