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A state-of-the-art view of present-day linguistic typology, focussing on universal tendencies across the world's languages and variation within individual categories.
List of contents
Acknowledgements; Contributors; Abbreviations; List of figures; List of tables; Introduction. Linguistic typology: setting the scene Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald and R. M. W. Dixon; Part I. Domains of Linguistic Typology: 1. Phonological typology Harry van der Hulst; 2. Morphological typology Thomas E. Payne; 3. Typology and historical linguistics Silvia Luraghi; 4. Sociolinguistic typology Peter Trudgill; 5. Typology and grammaticalization Heiko Narrog; 6. Sign language typology Ulrike Zeshan and Nick Palfreyman; 7. Typology of mixed languages Peter Bakker; 8. Typology of Creole languages Aymeric Daval-Markussen and Peter Bakker; 9. Typology of secret languages and linguistic taboos Anne Storch; Part II. Typology of Grammatical Categories: 10. A typology of morphological processes: form and function David Beck; 11. A typology of noun categorization devices Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald; 12. Negation Matti Miestamo; 13. Number Edith Moravcsik; 14. A typology of frustrative marking in Amazonian languages Simon E. Overall; 15. Logophoricity Felix Ameka; 16. Switch reference John Roberts; 17. Approaches to motion event typology Eric Pederson; Part III. Typological Profiles of Linguistic Areas and Language Families: 18. Language in the mainland Southeast Asia area N. J. Enfield; 19. The Australian linguistic area R. M. W. Dixon; 20. An overview of Aymaran and Quechuan language structures Willem Adelaar; 21. The Eskimo-Aleut language family Michael Fortescue; 22. The Athabaskan (Dene) language family Keren Rice and Willem de Reuse; 23. The Iroquoian language family Marianne Mithun; 24. The Kampa subgroup of the Arawak language family Elena Mihas; 25. The Omotic language family Azeb Amha; 26. The Semitic language family Aaron D. Rubin; 27. The Dravidian language family Sanford Steever; 28. The Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family Valérie Guérin; 29. The Greater Awyu-Ndumut language family of West Papua Lourens de Vries; Index of authors; Index of languages, language families and linguistic areas; Index of subjects.
About the author
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald is Australian Laureate Fellow, Distinguished Professor, and Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre, James Cook University, North Queensland. She is an expert on languages and cultures of Amazonia and the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, in addition to linguistic typology, general linguistics and several other areas.R. M. W. Dixon is Professor and Deputy Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre at James Cook University, North Queensland and a Fellow of the British Academy. He has published grammars of a number of Australian languages.
Summary
The typological classification of languages is an important research area, and impacts on many other subfields of linguistics, in explaining why languages are the way they are. This Handbook provides a state-of-the art survey of theories and methods used in linguistic typology, and the conclusions we can draw from them.
