Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
language typology [Grk typós ‘model, pattern’]
Classification of languages based on grammatical characteristics, i.e. ignoring genetic or geographical connections. The classical typology based on morphological criteria comes from A.W.von Schlegel’s distinction between analytic and synthetic languages: in analytic languages (
also isolating language), such as Classical Chinese, the grammatical relations between words in a sentence are expressed by independent syntactic form elements (e.g. prepositions), while in synthetic languages they are expressed by dependent morphological units (see Schlegel 1818). In the synthetic languages, Schlegel distinguishes between agglutinating languages, in which grammatical and lexical morphemes with simple semantic components are simply affixed to each other (e.g. Turkish), and inflectional languages, whose words cannot be analyzed into single morphemes with simple semantic meaning and which sometimes demonstrate phenomena such as root or stem alternation (e.g. Sanskrit). Humboldt (1836) added the term ‘polysynthetic languages,’ ( polysynthesis) in which a word often combines several word stems with very specific semantic meaning (e.g. Iroquoian) (also incorporating language). In this early stage of language typology, value judgments were also attached to each type: the richness of forms in the inflectional languages was considered a sign of greater development, while the isolating and agglutinating languages were seen as less developed stages on their way to becoming inflectional languages. For a history of the research on language typology, see Haarman (1976). The main objections against this traditional, primarily morphological, typology are based on the lack of theoretical agreement about the nature of the elements (such as syllable, morpheme, word) and properties (such as intonation, concatenation) in question, as well as its too categorical (as opposed to gradual) nature, which does not sufficiently take into consideration the interdependence of phonological, morphological, and syntactic criteria.
The syntactic approaches to typology owe the most to Greenberg (1963), who developed a typology of word order types ( universals). Other syntactic properties, such as the system of grammatical relations (e.g. ergative vs nominative languages) have also been used as the basis for language typology. For more recent approaches and terminological suggestions, see Altmann and Lehfeldt (1973), Lehmann (1978), and Vennemann (1982).
References
Altmann, G. and W.Lehfeldt. 1973. Allgemeine Sprachtypologie: Prinzipien und 
. Munich.
Comrie, B. 1981. Language universals and language typology. Oxford. (2nd edn 1989.)
Croft, W. 1990. Typology and universals. Cambridge.
Finck, F.N. 1909. Die Haupttypen des Sprachbaus. Leipzig. (Repr. 5th edn Darmstadt, 1965.)
Greenberg, J.H. 1960. A quantitative approach to the morphological typology of language. IJAL 26.
——1963. Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In his Universals of language. Cambridge.
——1974. Language typology: a historical and analytical overview. The Hague.
Haarman, H. 1976. Grundzüge der Sprachtypologie: Methodik, Empirie und Systematik der Sprachen Europas. Stuttgart.
Hawkins, J.A.
1986. A comparative typology of English and German: unifying the contrasts. Austin, TX.
Humboldt, W. 1836. Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaus. Berlin. (Repr. in Werke, ed. A.Flitner and K.Gields. Darmstadt. Vol. 3, 144–367.)
Lehmann, W.P. (ed.) 1978. Syntactic typology: studies in the phenomenology of language. Austin, TX.
——(ed.) 1990. Language typology 1987: systematic balance in language. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA.
——and H.-J.Herwitt. 1991. Language typology 1988: typological models in reconstruction. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA.
Mallison, G. and B.J.Blake. 1981. Language typology: cross-linguistic studies in syntax. Amsterdam.
Nichols, J. 1992. Linguistic diversity in space and time. Chicago and London.
Ramat, P. 1987. Linguistic typology. Berlin.
Sapir, E. 1921. Language. New York.
Schlegel, A.W.von 1818. Observations sur la langue et la littérature provençales. Paris.
Schmidt, P.W. 1926. Die Sprachfamilien und Sprachkreise der Erde. Heidelberg.
Schopen, T. (ed.) 1985. Language typology and syntactic description, 3 vols. Cambridge.
Schwegler, A. 1990. Analyticity and syntheticity: a diachronic perspective with special reference to the Romance languages. Berlin and New York.
Shibatani, M. et al. (eds). 1995. Approaches to language typology. Oxford.
Vennemann, T. 1982. Agglutination—Isolation—Flexion: zur Stimmigkeit typologischer Parameter. In U.Wandruszka (ed.), Festschrift für H.Stimm. Tübingen.
Journals
Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung.
Linguistic Typology.
classification of languages, universals
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