Abstract
It is unlikely that local or highly specific typological characteristics of language correlate with other aspects of human culture and history. However, at regional scale, the broad typology of languages does reflect bottlenecks. The paper argues that these regions of high typological similarity are due neither to chance nor long-term convergence, but reflect the initial conditions of settlement. This suggests that regions can be characterised by negative typology, i.e., the absence of globally common traits. Conversely, typological uniformity occurs in mainland Southeast Asia, a region notable for the similarities between language structures. An expansion of the remit of typology can uncover large regional patterns which can be tied to the archaeological narrative of the early expansion of modern humans.
Acknowledgements
This paper was prepared at the request of the editor of LT, Frans Plank. Thanks to Malcolm Ross and an anonymous referee for suggestions for this revised version.
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©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Discussion
- Is typology relevant?
- Typology, documentation, description, and typology
- What about typology is useful for language documentation?
- Type-ology or typ-ology?
- Inspiration and corrective: Typology can be more than a mere pastime for historical linguists
- Typology and coevolutionary linguistics
- The mutual relevance of typology and variation studies
- Language contact: Trojan horse or new potential for cross-fertilization?
- Positive signs: How sign language typology benefits deaf communities and linguistic theory
- Typology and the study of writing systems
- What can linguistic typology contribute to research on language evolution?
- Typology for the masses
- Typological bottlenecks: How large-scale regional language typologies help us interpret global prehistory
- Contributions of linguistic typology to psycholinguistics
- The importance of linguistic typology for the neurobiology of language
- Do language-specific word meanings shape sensory and motor brain systems? The relevance of semantic typology to cognitive neuroscience
- Language typology in speech and language technology
- Linguistic typology in natural language processing
- Book Reviews
- Tasaku Tsunoda: A grammar of Warrongo
- Roland Kießling: Verbal serialisation in Isu (West-Ring) – a Grassfields language of Cameroon
- Jonathan David Bobaljik: Universals in comparative morphology: Suppletion, superlatives and the structure of words
- Editorial Report
- Editorial Report
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Discussion
- Is typology relevant?
- Typology, documentation, description, and typology
- What about typology is useful for language documentation?
- Type-ology or typ-ology?
- Inspiration and corrective: Typology can be more than a mere pastime for historical linguists
- Typology and coevolutionary linguistics
- The mutual relevance of typology and variation studies
- Language contact: Trojan horse or new potential for cross-fertilization?
- Positive signs: How sign language typology benefits deaf communities and linguistic theory
- Typology and the study of writing systems
- What can linguistic typology contribute to research on language evolution?
- Typology for the masses
- Typological bottlenecks: How large-scale regional language typologies help us interpret global prehistory
- Contributions of linguistic typology to psycholinguistics
- The importance of linguistic typology for the neurobiology of language
- Do language-specific word meanings shape sensory and motor brain systems? The relevance of semantic typology to cognitive neuroscience
- Language typology in speech and language technology
- Linguistic typology in natural language processing
- Book Reviews
- Tasaku Tsunoda: A grammar of Warrongo
- Roland Kießling: Verbal serialisation in Isu (West-Ring) – a Grassfields language of Cameroon
- Jonathan David Bobaljik: Universals in comparative morphology: Suppletion, superlatives and the structure of words
- Editorial Report
- Editorial Report