Ling 001: Linguistic Typology

Part 1: Review and Introductory

Notions
Following our look at
grammatical structures
To this point we have examined linguistic
structures at various sizes:
Sound structure
Word Structure
Sentence Structure
Interpretation and Meaning
This investigation, while dealing with different
areas, shows common components
Properties of the different
areas
Some common themes
Linguistic representations involve abstract structures (i.e.
structures that we dont hear or see per se)
E.g. the way that speech sounds are organized suggests an
analysis in terms of dimensions like place and manner of
articulation
In addition, the way that linguistic objects (speech sounds,
morphemes, words) function in combination provides
evidence for the abstract structures and rules employed by
speakers (although of course without their explicit
knowledge)
Relating this to the central
point
Remember in addition that there is a central
argument that we began with
Language is not a cultural invention; it is
something that the human brain develops along
the lines of walking
Language learners are guided in learning the
(abstract!) rules of how language is structured by
innate linguistic competence
In an abstract sense, all languages are the
same, that is, they accomplish the same things
and are all reflections of this innate endowment
Further considerations and
questions
At the same time, we know that
languages differ from one another (i.e.
when we dont make the abstraction
above)
Question: How do we talk about these
differences in light of the hypothesis that
there is something universal and innate
to human language?
Plan
Review some facts about languages of
the world
Examine different areas in which
languages differ
Talk about the nature of such
differences
Languages: Basic Facts
How many languages are there?
According to the Ethnologue database,
there were in 2000 a total of
6,809 living languages in the world
Naturally the different languages have
distinct geographical distributions
Geography
Distribution:
Americas: 1013
Africa: 2058
Asia: 2197
Europe: 230
Pacific:1311
Comments
When the numbers of languages are given in
such terms, it is to be assumed that the
number of speakers varies greatly
E.g. Mandarin Chinese is reported to have 874
million speakers, whereas some languages
have only a single speaker remaining
In addition, counts are subject to questions of
what counts as a (first) language and so on,
and are thus not absolute (see below)
The Ethnologue Top 10
Top 10:

Language n(million)
1. Mandarin Chinese 874
2. English 341
3. Spanish 322-358
4. Bengali 207
5. Hindi 181
6. Portuguese 176
7. Russian 167
8. Japanese 125
9. German 100
10. Korean 78
Counting
It was noted above that the numbers depend a lot
on how the counting is defined
Consider e.g. Arabic, one of the worlds major
languages:
Grouped together, all of the different varieties of Arabic
have 219 million speakers (this would be number 4)
However: different local varieties of Arabic are not
mutually intelligible, and are therefore counted separately
The difference between e.g. Algerian Colloquial Arabic
and Egyptian Colloquial Arabic is reported to be like that
between e.g. Spanish and Portuguese
Endangered Languages
Many of the 6,000-odd "living" languages cited in Ethnologue
are endangered or nearly extinct.
Roughly half of the world's languages are moribund, in the
sense that new generations of children are not being raised to
speak them.
Within a century, it is likely that the number of living languages
will be cut at least in half, and may well be fewer than 1,000.
Thus the current rate of extinction for languages is much greater
than the rate of extinction for biological species. Most people
believe that this loss of linguistic/cultural diversity is a bad thing.
For languages that can't be saved, it is still possible to
document them for scientific purposes and for the sake of future
generations who might want to study or even revive them.
Talking about differences
In light of the number of languages found in
the world, our hypothesis about innateness
has to say something about this kind of
variation
The idea is going to be that the variation isnt
absolute; rather languages show fixed points
of difference
This is illustrated in several examples of such
differences in this and the following lecture
Basic Difference:
Sound/Meaning Connections
One obvious point is that languages differ in
terms of how sounds are paired with meanings
For instance, one thing we have to learn when
we learn a foreign language is what the words of
that language are (obviously)
Examples:
English German
Dog Hund
Cat Katze
Tree Baum
Differences
This is just the arbitrariness of sound/meaning
connections viewed across languages
It may be that languages have different vocabularies
for different things
This has caused some to think that the language that
we speak fundamentally affects how we think about
or categorize reality
This is the so-called Whorfian Hypothesis: language
determines thought
This hypothesis has been largely discredited, as
discussed in various places
Interpreting this
Given that languages are simply going
to vary in terms of their set of
sound/meaning connections; some
further questions
What other types of variation are there?
Variation in inventories
Variation in e.g. word-order requirements
How much variation is there when we are
looking at rules rather than inventories?
Inventory Differences
Another way in which languages differ is in
terms of their inventories of elements
Recall that we discussed this in our unit on
phonology:
English: 30 something phonemes
Abkhaz: A language spoken in the Caucasus;
one dialect has c. 67 consonant phonemes
Hawaiian: smaller phoneme inventory
Inventory Differences, cont.
Remember that we are interested in breaking down
phonemes into more abstract units; features for
Place of articulation
Manner of articulation
Voicing; etc.
The idea in this type of variation is that a restricted
inventory defined in these terms is in principle
available, and that specific languages make specific
choices from that inventory.
Inventory, cont.
Inventory differences show up in e.g. morphology
as well; consider number (recall morphology
slides)
English: Singular and Plural
I go, we go, etc.
Classical Greek: Dual as well:
Lu-ei `he/she/it looses
Lue-ton `they-2 loose
Luo-usi `they loose
Lihir (Oceanic)
Wa `you
Gol `you-2
Gotol `you-3
Gohet `you-PAUCAL
Go `you-PL
Further differences
When it comes to morphology and syntax, we see
another way in which languages differ
With morphology:
What is expressed in a word differs greatly from
language to language
Similarly, whether or not we see discrete pieces, or
multiple adjustments to a single piece
With syntax:
how trees are linearized (where the head of the phrase
is)
Fixed vs. free word order
Syntactic differences
In syntactic typology, we see other
types of differences; some cases that
involve the order of words and phrases:
Whether a language has a fixed word-order
or not
What the fixed word-order of the language
is in the first place
Whether there have to be subject and
object Noun Phrases in the first place
English Word Order
One fact that is clear about English is that major
constituents occur in a fixed order:
Subject Verb Object (SVO)
Other orders change the meaning; put differently
The cat chased the dog; and
The dog chased the cat.
Describe different events altogether. In English, information about the Subject
and the Object requires a fixed syntactic order
Think carefully about e.g.
The cat, the dog chased
General Patterns
The general pattern- one that accounts for
part of the word order facts- is that in English,
the heads of phrases precede the
complements of the heads
Recall that we have phrases like XP with
head X
In English we find [X YP], not YP X
E.g. PP: [to [the store]]; VP [eat [an apple]]
Another way of putting this
The trees we draw for constituent structures
are like mobiles
Linear orders respect these structures: lines
cannot cross
VP
V NP
eat N
*[[the apples] eat]
apples
Ok: [ eat [the apples]]
Later well see languages that have this tree
structure, but a different order for the elements
Remember
The example of inversion with auxiliaries:
Is [the unicorn that is in the garden] t eating
apples?
In order to know which is to move to the front,
we have to know the phrase structure. The
linear order does not tell us.
In the way we think about syntax, the mobile
is important for movement and other syntactic
phenomena, but in the end it has to have a
linear order
English Phrases
The fact that the head precedes the
complement is general in English; this is called
the head-initial pattern
In other languages, as we will see later, the
reverse pattern is found; these are head-final
patterns
There are sporadic examples in English in which
the reverse appears to be found as well:
Examples with notwithstanding notwithstanding,
English is a head-initial language
Elsewhere
Some languages are primarily head-
final; e.g. Hindi. Compare
Rahul had read the book.
Rahul-ne kitaab-ko paRh-aa thaa
Rahul book read AUX
Theres a kind of mirror-image effect
here (think trees)
 Structures
S
NP AuxP

Rahul Aux VP

had V NP
read the book

This is the English version.

Head final
S
NP AuxP

Rahul VP Aux

NP V had
the book read

This is the Hindi version. Look carefully at what has

changed.
A puzzle
Which basic orders are possible?
What about VSO:
Welsh:
Lladdodd y ddraig y dyn.
killed the dragon the man
The dragon killed the man.
See the next lecture
Free Word Order
Some languages do not require major
constituents to appear in a fixed order
Such languages are sometimes
described as having free word order
In such languages, participants in the
event and subject, object etc. are
identified by other means
Examples
One language with free word order is
Mapudungun, which is spoken in Chile
and Argentina
Here is a basic sentence:
INche pefin metawe
I see vessel
I see the vessel
Word Orders
In addition to allowing SVO sentences,
all of the other possible arrangements
are grammatical as well:
INche metawe pefin. SOV
Metawe iNche pefin. OSV
Metawe pefin iNche OVS
Pefin metawe iNche VOS
Pefin iNche metawe VSO
Agreement and Free Word
Order
How are the grammatical roles of these noun phrases
determined?
Above the verb is given as
pefin
This verb actually has a lot of information in it:
Pe-fi-n
See-Object.Marker-1sS
That is, the verb says that the subject is first person singular,
and that there is a third person object.
Thus the different word orders can be understood as expressing
the same basic proposition