[Lingtyp] Diversity/dispersion of descriptive/typological knowledge by language

[John Du Bois]

Trudgill's paper is excellent and thought-provoking. Here's the reference:

Trudgill, Peter (2015). Sociolinguistic typology and the uniformitarian
hypothesis. In De Busser, R. & LaPolla, R. J. (Eds.), Language structure
and environment: Social, cultural, and natural factors. Amsterdam:
Benjamins. 133-148.
https://benjamins.com/catalog/clscc.6

Best,
Jack

On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 6:15 AM Randy J. LaPolla <randy.lapolla at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Juergen,
> Relevant to this is work by Peter Trudgill on Sociolinguistic typology and
> the uniformitarian hypothesis. See the attached paper of his from a few
> years ago. I couldn’t find a publication reference for it, but it might be
> included in his Sociolinguistic Typology book.
>
> All the best,
> Randy
> -----
> *Randy J. LaPolla, PhD FAHA* （羅仁地）
> Professor of Linguistics, with courtesy appointment in Chinese, School of
> Humanities
> Nanyang Technological University
> HSS-03-45, 48 Nanyang Avenue| Singapore 639818
> http://randylapolla.net/
> Most recent books:
> *The Sino-Tibetan Languages, 2nd Edition (*2017)
>
> https://www.routledge.com/The-Sino-Tibetan-Languages-2nd-Edition/LaPolla-Thurgood/p/book/9781138783324
> *Sino-Tibetan Linguistics *(2018)
>
> https://www.routledge.com/Sino-Tibetan-Linguistics/LaPolla/p/book/9780415577397
>
>
> On 4 Jan 2020, at 2:09 AM, Bohnemeyer, Juergen <jb77 at buffalo.edu> wrote:
>
> Dear all — I was wondering whether anybody has attempted to quantify the
> extent of linguistic diversity in our knowledge of the languages of the
> world. I believe mathematically speaking the type of information I’m
> looking for is a frequency distribution. The question is to what extent are
> a handful of languages and language families overrepresented in our
> knowledge of the languages of the world whereas the vast majority of
> languages and language families are underrepresented. One can ask this
> question (i) about our descriptive knowledge of any and all languages and
> (ii) specifically about the typological literature. I’m most interested in
> (ii), but I’m guessing there’s more likely to be an answer to (i) (though I
> also realize that the odds of anybody having proposed an answer to either
> question without me having heard of it are not great). Anybody aware of
> such a study? Even relevant claims without empirical footing would be of
> interest. — Best — Juergen
>
> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
> Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
> Department of Linguistics and Center for Cognitive Science
> University at Buffalo
>
> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus * Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall,
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>
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>
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-- 

=======================================

John W. DuBois
Professor of Linguistics
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California 93106
USA
Email: dubois at ucsb.eduZoom room: https://ucsb.zoom.us/my/dubois

Web page: http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/dubois/
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