[Lingtyp] language typology, linguistic typology, comparative linguistics

Wed Feb 28 06:36:44 UTC 2018

Dear all — It’s remarkable how unpopular the term ‘typology’ seems to be among typologists! One possible disadvantage of ‘comparative’ as an alternative moniker for the field is that it’s not obvious that every comparative study is typological. Take, say, a comparison of the tense-aspect systems of five Bantu languages. Such a study may not pursue any goals beyond improving the description and historical study of Bantu. Should we give up the distinction between such studies and what we currently consider typological research? Well, one could certainly argue that not much - if anything - hinges on this distinction.

And a reply to Dan (Hi Dan!): there may be more to this “Linnaeus waiting for Darwin” metaphor than meets the eye. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the similarities between typology and variationist sociolinguistics. Both typologists and variationist sociolinguists study the distribution of linguistic properties - across languages and linguistic areas in the case of typologists and across social and demographic groups and geographic regions in the case of Labovian sociolinguists. The express goal of the variationist enterprise according to Labov has been the construction of a comprehensive theory of language change (of which Labov has given us his best stab). 

In the same vein, if contemporary typology is indeed preparing the ground for the rise of a new theoretical edifice, I suspect it will not be a theory like the comprehensive theories of language structure that dominated linguistics between the mid sixties and the mid nineties and that seem to have fallen into stagnation since. Rather, it might instead wind up being a comprehensive theory of language evolution. 

Best — Juergen

> On Feb 28, 2018, at 12:59 AM, Martin Haspelmath <haspelmath at shh.mpg.de> wrote:
> 
> Yes, in the past (before Greenberg), "comparative linguistics" was primarily used for historical-genealogical linguistics, but this use seems to be long obsolete (as I note in my blogpost: https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1022).
> 
> At MPI-SHH in Jena where I work now (perhaps currently the best-funded place where people are engaged in historical-genealogical studies), people use terms like "evolutionary linguistics" or "phylogenetic linguistics".
> 
> Incidentally, there is no difference between "comparative linguistics" and "vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft" – the latter was used for historical-genealogical linguistics, but is now obsolete in this sense. Balthasar Bickel uses it in the broader sense that I have suggested.
> 
> But there is an English-German contrast in that nobody uses "linguistische Typologie" – this sounds like a different meaning is intended, namely "typology of linguistics"; and who knows, maybe this is intended by the shift from "language typology" (= typology of languages?) to "linguistic typology" (= typology in linguistics?).
> 
> Martin
> 
> On 28.02.18 03:51, Dan I. SLOBIN wrote:
>> And I've lectured to confused non-linguists who wonder what all of these strange phenomena have to do with "topology."  All of this back and forth shows that there's no rubric that a complex set of questions can fit under.  I share Martin's misgivings--but do remember that we have a journal and an association dedicated to "linguistic typology" --as much as I wish there was an English equivalent of vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft.  
>> 
>> Indeed, in the historical framework, typological and taxonomic studies are precursors to more systematic science.  That was, for example, the contribution of Linnaeus.  We're still at the stage when we need good descriptive work, and we don't have to be apologetic about that.  Sometimes I see us as a collection of Linnaeus's waiting for Darwin, not knowing what Darwin will need.   
>> 
>> Dan
>> 
>> On Tue, Feb 27, 2018 at 4:49 PM, Hedvig Skirgård <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Just as an illustration of non-linguists (or even non-typologists) not understanding the short term "typology". Recently at an event for our research centre I did a short presentation of the field and there were non-linguists in the audience who found it very enlightening, because they had thought that "typology" was the study of how people type language.
>> 
>> /Hedvig
>> 
>> 
>> Med vänliga hälsningar,
>> Hedvig Skirgård
>> 
>> PhD Candidate
>> The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity
>> ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
>> School of Culture, History and Language
>> College of Asia and the Pacific
>> The Australian National University
>> Website
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 2018-02-28 9:18 GMT+11:00 Siva Kalyan <sivakalyan.princeton at gmail.com>:
>> I would point out that in English, the term “comparative linguistics” is typically used as a shorthand for “historical-comparative linguistics”, i.e. that part of historical linguistics that concerns itself with genealogical relatedness between languages, reconstruction etc., as opposed to diachronic change within a single language. (See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_linguistics.)
>> 
>> I see that in German (according to the corresponding Wikipedia entry), the term vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft has a broader meaning which encompasses both historical linguistics (historisch-vergleichende S—) and typology (allgemein-vergleichende S—); this makes sense of the name of the department in Zurich (otherwise a bit puzzling for an English-speaker).
>> 
>> Thus the use of “comparative linguistics” to refer to (only) linguistic typology would seem to be in competition with existing usage in both English and German. That said, I can see the utility of having a cover term that encompasses both historical linguistics and typology, and would support using “comparative linguistics” in the German sense. I’m not sure if this is within the scope of the current discussion, though.
>> 
>> Siva
>> 
>>> On 28 Feb 2018, at 8:10 am, Martin Haspelmath <haspelmath at shh.mpg.de> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Dear all,
>>> 
>>> What is the name of our subfield (or subcommunity): 
>>> 
>>> “language typology”? 
>>> “linguistic typology”? 
>>> or maybe simply “comparative linguistics”?
>>> 
>>> Linguists know that there is no difference between the first two, and they also understand the shorter "typology", but this term is opaque for nonlinguists, and the duality of “language typology”  and “linguistic typology” is inconvenient, because there is incomplete aggregation on sites like Google Scholar and Academia.edu. 
>>> 
>>> (It seems that on Academia.edu, 6354 people are followers of “language typology”, 8732 follow “linguistic typology”, and 7090 follow “typology”, though perhaps not all of the latter mean typology in the linguistics sense.) 
>>> 
>>> Historically, it seems clear that “language typology” is the older term, and has become current in the 1970s. Since the 1990s, it got a competitor ("linguistic typology"), for unclear reasons.
>>> 
>>> (More on the history of these two terms can be found in the following blogpost: https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1022)
>>> 
>>> So I'm wondering: Maybe we should consider switching to an entirely different, fully transparent term, namely "comparative linguistics"?
>>> 
>>> It seems that there are quite a few well-established fields with “comparative” in their names: comparative economics, comparative education, comparative law, comparative literature, comparative mythology, comparative psychology, and “comparative zoology” even has a famous museum on the Harvard campus. 
>>> 
>>> (So far, at least one department of comparative linguistics in the relevant sense exists: at the University of Zurich,http://www.comparativelinguistics.uzh.ch/en.html). 
>>> 
>>> I feel that the term “comparative linguistics” for what used to be called “language/linguistic typology” has another big advantage: The term fails to signal association with a particular subcommunity – and this is good. After all, many comparative linguists work in a generative framework, and these do not usually associate with the term “typology”. However, much of what they do is clearly “typological” in the usually understood sense, so it is really odd to exclude this community terminologically.
>>> 
>>> In any event, the question of the name of our subfield of linguistics seems not gto have been discussed explicitly. Maybe it would not be a complete waste of time to engage in some discussion.
>>> 
>>> Martin
>>> 
>>>  
>>> -- 
>>> Martin Haspelmath (
>>> haspelmath at shh.mpg.de
>>> )
>>> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
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>>> &
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> -- 
> Martin Haspelmath (
> haspelmath at shh.mpg.de
> )
> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
> Kahlaische Strasse 10	
> D-07745 Jena  
> &
> Leipzig University 
> IPF 141199
> Nikolaistrasse 6-10
> D-04109 Leipzig    
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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