Typological inference

[Richard M. Alderson III]

On 8 Sep 1999, Steve Long wrote:

>I also think one striking thing about the "[typological] approaches"
>described is their strength in helping those who must identify language-
>types and structure in undeciphered text, i.e., "at ground zero."

If a text is undeciphered, it is unclear to me how any amount of typological
information could be put to use.  Typology makes reference to concepts such as
"noun", "verb", "adjective", "subject", "object", and so on, which cannot be
applied to an undeciphered text.  Perhaps you mean something other than
"undeciphered"?

								Rich Alderson