Linguistic typology

Grammars evolve through usage and human population separations. With the advent of written representations, formal rules about language usage tend to appear also. Formal grammars are codifications of usage that are developed by observation. As the rules become established and developed, the prescriptive concept of grammatical correctness can arise. This often creates a gulf between contemporary usage and that which is accepted as correct. Linguists normally consider that prescriptive grammars do not have any justification beyond their author ...

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Grammar, Grammar - Types of grammar, Grammar - Development of grammars, Grammar - Grammatical devices, Grammar - Grammatical terms, Grammar - Related topics

Read more here: » Grammar: Encyclopedia II - Grammar - Development of grammars

These features strongly contrast with major language groups bordering East and Southeast Asia such as Australian languages, Indo-Pacific languages, Paleosiberian languages, and Indo-European languages, as well as Afro-Asiatic languages. Some features loosely similar to some seen in many of the even more distant African languages, such as short, tonal morphemes and a large number of noun classes are likely to have originated independently. Languages of East and Southeast Asia are classified into multiple language families, signifying t ...

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East Asian languages, East Asian languages - CJK area, East Asian languages - Areal linguistic features, East Asian languages - Morphology, East Asian languages - Pronouns, East Asian languages - Syntax, East Asian languages - Etiquette, East Asian languages - Linguistic relationships

Read more here: » East Asian languages: Encyclopedia II - East Asian languages - Linguistic relationships

Semantic roles (aka theta-roles): Agent Patient Grammatical relations: Subject Object Oblique Transitive verbs usually have two arguments, subject and object. Intransitive verbs have a single argument, the subject. In this regard, most languages group two of the arguments and leave the other apart in terms of distinction. That is, of the three possible arguments, two are treated the same, and the other is treated ...

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Morphosyntactic alignment, Morphosyntactic alignment - Semantics & grammatical relations, Morphosyntactic alignment - Ergative vs. accusative, Morphosyntactic alignment - Milewski's typology, Morphosyntactic alignment - Bibliography

Read more here: » Morphosyntactic alignment: Encyclopedia II - Morphosyntactic alignment - Semantics & grammatical relations

While the term animal languages is widely used, most researchers agree that they are not as complex or expressive as human language; a more accurate term is animal communication. Some researchers argue that there are significant differences separating human language from the communication of other animals, and that the underlying principles are not related. In several widely publicised instances, animals have been trained to mimic certain features of human language. For example, chimpanzees and gorillas have been taught hand si ...

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Language, Language - Properties of language, Language - Human languages, Language - Origins of human language, Language - Language taxonomy, Language - Constructed languages, Language - The study of language, Language - Animal nonhuman language, Language - Formal languages

Read more here: » Language: Encyclopedia II - Language - Animal nonhuman language

The CJK area refers to Chinese, Japanese and Korean, the languages with large amounts of vocabulary of Chinese origin, and which are or were formerly written with Chinese characters Outside of China itself, these coincide with the area where Literary Chinese was at one time used as the written language, and influenced the development of a national written language based on the previously unwritten local non-Chinese language. Chinese morphology and word-forming principles have been carried over into these languages, so that it is not u ...

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East Asian languages, East Asian languages - CJK area, East Asian languages - Areal linguistic features, East Asian languages - Morphology, East Asian languages - Pronouns, East Asian languages - Syntax, East Asian languages - Etiquette, East Asian languages - Linguistic relationships

Read more here: » East Asian languages: Encyclopedia II - East Asian languages - CJK area

The oldest surviving written grammar for any language is believed to be the Tolkāppiyam (தொல்காப்பியம்), a book on the grammar of the Tamil language, written around 200 BCE by Tolkāppiyar. Its classification of the alphabet into consonants and vowel was a breakthrough. The historical record of the study of language begins in North India with Pāṇini, the 5th century BCE grammarian who formulated 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology, known as the Aṣṭādhyāyī (अष� ...

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Language, Language - Properties of language, Language - Human languages, Language - Origins of human language, Language - Language taxonomy, Language - Constructed languages, Language - The study of language, Language - Animal nonhuman language, Language - Formal languages

Read more here: » Language: Encyclopedia II - Language - The study of language

Less widely known yet worth mention is a similar classification proposed in the 1960's by the Polish linguist Tadeusz Milewski. In this classification active and tripartite languages were omitted because they were little known at that time. Milewski proposed a division of languages into 6 groups, based upon consideration of 4 main syntactic relationships; these were: (1) the relationship of the experiencer to the verb, (2) the relationship of the agent to the verb, (3) the relations ...

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Morphosyntactic alignment, Morphosyntactic alignment - Semantics & grammatical relations, Morphosyntactic alignment - Ergative vs. accusative, Morphosyntactic alignment - Milewski's typology, Morphosyntactic alignment - Bibliography

Read more here: » Morphosyntactic alignment: Encyclopedia II - Morphosyntactic alignment - Milewski's typology

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 symbols may be used for expression or communication, it is primitive and relatively unexpressive, because there are no clear or regular relationships between the symbols. Because a language also has a grammar, it can manipulate its symbols to express clear and regular relationships between them. For example, imagine going on a walk with a person who only knew individual symbols, or words. If you saw a ...

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Language, Language - Properties of language, Language - Human languages, Language - Origins of human language, Language - Language taxonomy, Language - Constructed languages, Language - The study of language, Language - Animal nonhuman language, Language - Formal languages

Read more here: » Language: Encyclopedia II - Language - Properties of language

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 sentence, but it is the second constituent; the first constituent is "dit boek" (this book). Note the contrast with the following embedded clauses: Similar examples can be given for German. The usual analysis of the Dutch (and German) V2 phenomenon is that the "normal" position of the verb is at the end of the clause (SOV) and that in main ...

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V2 word order, V2 word order - V2 effect, V2 word order - Classification, V2 word order - Examples, V2 word order - CP-V2 SOV, V2 word order - CP-V2 SVO, V2 word order - IP-V2 SVO

Read more here: » V2 word order: Encyclopedia II - V2 word order - V2 effect

In some cases (impersonal constructions), a proposition has no referent at all. Pro-drop languages deal naturally with these, whereas many non-pro-drop languages such as English and French have to fill in the syntactic gap by inserting a dummy pronoun. "*Rains" is not a correct sentence; a dummy "it" has to be added: It rains. In Spanish, however, "Rains" can be a sentence: "Llueve". (See weather verb.) There are some languages that are not pro-drop but do not expect this syntactic gap to be filled. For exa ...

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Pro-drop language, Pro-drop language - Generalizations across languages, Pro-drop language - English, Pro-drop language - Finno-Ugric languages, Pro-drop language - Impersonal constructions

Read more here: » Pro-drop language: Encyclopedia II - Pro-drop language - Impersonal constructions

Whereas the core of theoretical linguistics is concerned with studying languages at a particular point in time (usually the present), diachronic linguistics examines how language changes through time, sometimes over centuries. Historical linguistics enjoys both a rich history (the study of linguistics grew out of historical linguistics) and a strong theoretical foundation for the study of language change. In American universities, the non-historic perspective seems to have the upper hand. Many introductory linguistics classes, for exa ...

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Linguistics, Linguistics - Dichotomies and language, Linguistics - Levels of theoretical linguistics, Linguistics - Diachronic linguistics, Linguistics - Applied linguistics, Linguistics - Contextual linguistics, Linguistics - Individual speakers language communities and linguistic universals, Linguistics - Prescription and description, Linguistics - Speech versus writing, Linguistics - Research areas of linguistics, Linguistics - Interdisciplinary linguistic research, Linguistics - Important linguists and schools of thought, Linguistics - Representation of speech, Linguistics - Narrower conceptions of linguistics

Read more here: » Linguistics: Encyclopedia II - Linguistics - Diachronic linguistics

Whereas theoretical linguistics is concerned with finding and describing generalities both within particular languages and among all languages, applied linguistics takes the results of those findings and applies them to other areas. Often applied linguistics refers to the use of linguistic research in language teaching, but results of linguistic research are used in many other areas, as well. Many areas of applied linguistics today involve the explicit use of computers. Speech synthesis and speech recognition use phoneti ...

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Linguistics, Linguistics - Dichotomies and language, Linguistics - Levels of theoretical linguistics, Linguistics - Diachronic linguistics, Linguistics - Applied linguistics, Linguistics - Contextual linguistics, Linguistics - Individual speakers language communities and linguistic universals, Linguistics - Prescription and description, Linguistics - Speech versus writing, Linguistics - Research areas of linguistics, Linguistics - Interdisciplinary linguistic research, Linguistics - Important linguists and schools of thought, Linguistics - Representation of speech, Linguistics - Narrower conceptions of linguistics

Read more here: » Linguistics: Encyclopedia II - Linguistics - Applied linguistics

The CJKV area refers to Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese, the languages with large amounts of vocabulary of Chinese origin, and which are or were formerly written with Chinese characters Outside of China itself, these coincide with the area where Literary Chinese was at one time used as the written language, and influenced the development of a national written language based on the previously unwritten local non-Chinese language. Chinese morphology and word-forming principles have been carried over into these languages, so tha ...

See also:

East Asian languages, East Asian languages - CJKV area, East Asian languages - Areal linguistic features, East Asian languages - Morphology, East Asian languages - Pronouns, East Asian languages - Syntax, East Asian languages - Etiquette, East Asian languages - Linguistic relationships

Read more here: » East Asian languages: Encyclopedia II - East Asian languages - CJKV area

Research currently performed under the name "linguistics" is purely descriptive; linguists seek to clarify the nature of language without passing value judgments or trying to chart future language directions. Nonetheless, there are many professionals and amateurs who also prescribe rules of language, holding a particular standard out for all to follow. Prescriptivists tend to be found among the ranks of language educators and journalists, and not in the actual academic discipline of linguistics. They hold clear notions o ...

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Linguistics, Linguistics - Dichotomies and language, Linguistics - Levels of theoretical linguistics, Linguistics - Diachronic linguistics, Linguistics - Applied linguistics, Linguistics - Contextual linguistics, Linguistics - Individual speakers language communities and linguistic universals, Linguistics - Prescription and description, Linguistics - Speech versus writing, Linguistics - Research areas of linguistics, Linguistics - Interdisciplinary linguistic research, Linguistics - Important linguists and schools of thought, Linguistics - Representation of speech, Linguistics - Narrower conceptions of linguistics

Read more here: » Linguistics: Encyclopedia II - Linguistics - Prescription and description

Most contemporary linguists work under the assumption that spoken language is more fundamental, and thus more important to study than written language. Reasons for this perspective include: Speech appears to be a human universal, whereas there have been many cultures and speech communities that lack written communication; People learn to speak and process spoken languages more easily and much earlier than writing; A number of cognitive scientists argue that the brain has an innate "language module", knowledge o ...

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Linguistics, Linguistics - Dichotomies and language, Linguistics - Levels of theoretical linguistics, Linguistics - Diachronic linguistics, Linguistics - Applied linguistics, Linguistics - Contextual linguistics, Linguistics - Individual speakers language communities and linguistic universals, Linguistics - Prescription and description, Linguistics - Speech versus writing, Linguistics - Research areas of linguistics, Linguistics - Interdisciplinary linguistic research, Linguistics - Important linguists and schools of thought, Linguistics - Representation of speech, Linguistics - Narrower conceptions of linguistics

Read more here: » Linguistics: Encyclopedia II - Linguistics - Speech versus writing

Early scholars of linguistics include Jakob Grimm, who devised the principle of consonantal shifts in pronunciation known as Grimm's Law in 1822, Karl Verner, who discovered Verner's Law, August Schleicher who created the "Stammbaumtheorie" and Johannes Schmidt who developed the "Wellentheorie" ("wave model") in 1872. Ferdinand de Saussure was the founder of modern structural linguistics. Edward Sapir a leader in American structural linguistics, was one of the first who explored the relations between language studies and anthropology. His me ...

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Linguistics, Linguistics - Dichotomies and language, Linguistics - Levels of theoretical linguistics, Linguistics - Diachronic linguistics, Linguistics - Applied linguistics, Linguistics - Contextual linguistics, Linguistics - Individual speakers language communities and linguistic universals, Linguistics - Prescription and description, Linguistics - Speech versus writing, Linguistics - Research areas of linguistics, Linguistics - Interdisciplinary linguistic research, Linguistics - Important linguists and schools of thought, Linguistics - Representation of speech, Linguistics - Narrower conceptions of linguistics

Read more here: » Linguistics: Encyclopedia II - Linguistics - Important linguists and schools of thought

In analytic languages there are little or no morphological changes. Words tend not to be inflected. Grammatical categories are indicated by word order (for example, inversion of verb and subject for interrogative sentences) or by bringing in additional words (for example, a word for "some" or "many" instead of a plural inflection like English -s). Individual words carry a general meaning (root concept); nuances are expressed by other words. Context and syntax are more important than morphology. Analytic languages include some o ...

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Morphological typology, Morphological typology - Analytic languages, Morphological typology - Synthetic languages, Morphological typology - Agglutinative languages, Morphological typology - Fusional languages, Morphological typology - Polysynthetic languages, Morphological typology - Morphological typology in reality

Read more here: » Morphological typology: Encyclopedia II - Morphological typology - Analytic languages

Theoretical linguistics is often divided into a number of separate areas, to be studied more or less independently. The following divisions are currently widely acknowledged: Phonetics, the study of the sounds of human language Phonology (or phonemics), the study of patterns of a language's basic sounds Morphology, the study of the internal structure of words Syntax, the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences Semantics, the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics), a ...

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Linguistics, Linguistics - Dichotomies and language, Linguistics - Levels of theoretical linguistics, Linguistics - Diachronic linguistics, Linguistics - Applied linguistics, Linguistics - Contextual linguistics, Linguistics - Individual speakers language communities and linguistic universals, Linguistics - Prescription and description, Linguistics - Speech versus writing, Linguistics - Research areas of linguistics, Linguistics - Interdisciplinary linguistic research, Linguistics - Important linguists and schools of thought, Linguistics - Representation of speech, Linguistics - Narrower conceptions of linguistics

Read more here: » Linguistics: Encyclopedia II - Linguistics - Levels of theoretical linguistics

In languages such as English which rely heavily on word order and use frequent passivization, identification of theta roles from merely syntactic clues is often impossible. In more heavily case-marked languages, however, more information is often encoded syntactically. Many languages, for instance, have an instrumental case, which explicitly marks the instrument of a sentence. However, in such languages the instrumental case m ...

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Theta role, Theta role - Major theta roles, Theta role - Relationship of syntax to theta roles, Theta role - Uniqueness

Read more here: » Theta role: Encyclopedia II - Theta role - Relationship of syntax to theta roles

In the 19th century, it was sometimes assumed that the centum-satem isogloss was the original dialect division of the Indo-European languages. However already Karl Brugmann, and in particular Johannes Schmidt regarded the Centum/Satem sound changes as an areal feature. Incomplete Satemization in Baltic, and, to a lesser extent, Slavic, is taken as an indication of the diffusion of the satem sound change, or, alternatively, due to loans via early contact of Proto-Baltic and Proto-Germanic speakers. Examples of remnants of labial elemen ...

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Centum-Satem isogloss, Centum-Satem isogloss - Proto-Indo-European dorsals, Centum-Satem isogloss - Satem, Centum-Satem isogloss - Centum, Centum-Satem isogloss - Origins of the sound change, Centum-Satem isogloss - Literature

Read more here: » Centum-Satem isogloss: Encyclopedia II - Centum-Satem isogloss - Origins of the sound change

In the Centum languages, the palato-velar consonants merged with plain velars (*k, *g, *gʰ). Most of the Centum languages preserve Proto-Indo-European labio-velars (*See also:

Centum-Satem isogloss, Centum-Satem isogloss - Proto-Indo-European dorsals, Centum-Satem isogloss - Satem, Centum-Satem isogloss - Centum, Centum-Satem isogloss - Origins of the sound change, Centum-Satem isogloss - Literature

Read more here: » Centum-Satem isogloss: Encyclopedia II - Centum-Satem isogloss - Centum