[Lingtyp] Probabilistic typology vs. typology-based grammatical theory

[Jan Rijkhoff]

I think I should mention an important point, which is perhaps so obvious that no one thought of bringing it up so far: some of us are doing probabilistic typology (or are not committed to grammatical theory), others use typological data to test a grammatical theory (Rijkhoff 2002). Which group one belongs to makes a big difference regarding the way cross-linguistic data are identified and processed.

Probabilistic Typology
For example, it is one of Matthew’s goals to find word order correlations (or rather ‘constituent order correlations’), so if the formal, morpho-syntactic aspects of the members of some semantic category are statistically insignificant, he can ignore morpho-syntactic variation in his data for the purpose of his research goal.

Typology and grammatical theory

It is my goal to contribute to a typology-based theory of grammar that can describe and explain both the frequent and the less frequent grammatical phenomena in all languages. So for me the statistically insignificant variants in languages across the globe are at least as interesting and relevant as the statistically significant ones. A theory that can account for both common and unusual phenomena is superior to a theory that can only handle common grammatical phenomena.

     I demonstrated in Rijkhoff (2010: 223) that “… grammatical theorizing and linguistic typologizing must go hand in hand and that rare typological features play a central role in the interaction of typology and theory”. This is, of course, also the reason we (Rijkhoff, Bakker, Hengeveld & Kahrel 1993; Rijkhoff & Bakker 2000) developed a sampling method that is designed to produce the maximum degree of linguistic variation in a sample (‘variety sample’). In a variety sample (as opposed to a probability sample) it is very important to have cases of the rarest type, since “exceptional types test the theory” (Perkins 1988: 367).

So what is statistically not significant for probabilistic typology is highly relevant for a complete theory of grammar and since grammatical behaviour is due to semantic, formal and functional (interpersonal, communicative) factors, functional grammarians need to distinguish between semantic, formal and functional categories in typological research when they collect and interpret their cross-linguistic data. There no need for ‘conceptual categories’ here: since no two forms/constructions are completely identical in grammatical behaviour incl. usage/frequency (also noted in Edith’s contribution), we should instead agree on what counts a ‘sufficiently similar for a responsible comparison’ when we collect and process cross-linguistic data.


Hengeveld, Kees and Lachlan Mackenzie. 2008. Functional Discourse Grammar: A typologically-based theory of language structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Perkins, Revere D. 1988. The covariation of culture and grammar. In M.T. Hammond, E.A. Moravcsik and J.R Wirth (eds), Studies in Syntactic Typology, 359-378. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Rijkhoff, Jan. 2002. On the interaction of Linguistic Typology and Functional Grammar. In The Interaction of Data, Description, and Theory in Linguistics: Functional perspectives. Special issue of Functions of Language 9-2, William B. McGregor, (ed.), 209–237.
Rijkhoff, Jan. 2010. Rara and grammatical theory. In J. Wohlgemuth and M. Cysouw (eds.), Rethinking Universals: How rarities affect linguistic theory (Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Typology 45), 223-240. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Rijkhoff, Jan and Dik Bakker. 1998. Language sampling. Linguistic Typology 2–3, 263–314.
Rijkhoff, Jan, Dik Bakker, Kees Hengeveld and Peter Kahrel. 1993. A method of language sampling. Studies in Language 17-1, 169-203.
________________________________
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20160125/6a7401da/attachment.htm>