Chapter I. Lexical typology is the systematic study of cross-linguistic variations

CHAPTER I.
LEXICAL TYPOLOGY IS THE SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF CROSS-LINGUISTIC VARIATIONS
1.1. Lexicology is a branch of linguistics
In principle, we might pick on any structural feature and use it as the basis of classification. For example, we could divide languages into those in which the word for a canine animal is dog and those in which it isn’t. The first group here would contain exactly two known languages: English and the Australian language Mbabaram. But such a classification would be pointless since it wouldn't lead anywhere. "The only typological classifications which are of interest are those which are fruitful. By this, we mean that the languages in each category should turn out to have other features in common, features which are not used to set up the classification in the first place. “The most celebrated and fruitful of all typological classifications has proved to be one in terms of basic word order. Proposed by Joseph Greenberg in 1963 and more recently developed by John Hawkins and others, word-order typology has revealed a number of striking and previously unsuspected correlations. For example, a language with SOV Subject, Object, Verb order is highly likely to have modifiers that precede their head nouns, auxiliaries that follow their main verbs, postpositions instead of prepositions, and a rich case system for nouns. A VSO Verb, Subject, Object language, in contrast, usually has modifiers that follow their nouns, auxiliaries that precede their verbs, prepositions, and no cases. “There is evidence from linguistic varieties around the world, including Greek dialects, to suggest that the distribution of structural characteristics over the world's languages may not be entirely random from a sociolinguistic point of view. For example, we have seen indications that long-term contact involving child bilingualism may lead to increased complexity, including redundancy. Conversely, contact involving adult second language acquisition may lead to increased simplification.
Furthermore, communities with dense, tightly-knit social networks may be more likely to demonstrate fast-speech phenomena and the consequences of this, and more likely to experience unusual sound changes. I would like to suggest, moreover, that insights of this type can complement research in linguistic typology by giving an explanatory edge to the findings of this discipline. And I would also suggest that these insights should give some sense of urgency to typological research: if it is true that certain types of linguistic structure are to be found more frequently, or possibly only, in dialects spoken in smaller and more isolated communities, then we had better research these types of communities as rapidly as we can while they still exist.”
The Greek words typos, which means type, and logos, which means science or word, combine to form the term typology. The field of research known as typology is applicable to all sciences without exception. In this way, their typological approach is not constrained to the domain of a single discipline. It rises everywhere. So, there are two categories of typology: linguistic and non-linguistic. The topic area of the sciences other than linguistics is non-linguistic typology. A recent area of general linguistics is called linguistic typology, which compares the language systems, identifies common patterns among them, and defines their distinctions and similarities. We can divide linguistic typology into the following categories based on the idea of comparing language phenomena and the objectives pursued. Genetic or genealogical typology, structural typology, areal typology, and comparative typology are the four types of typology. A subfield of linguistic typology called genealogical typology examines the connections and parallels between related languages. It applies to the structure of genetically linked linguistic systems. The comparative-historical linguistics that predominated in Europe throughout the 19th century gave rise to the genealogy of typology. The discovery of Sanskrit, an ancient Indian classical language, served as a catalyst for its development. The idea of comparing languages was made known by the discovery of Sanskrit. The fact that a sister language to the well-known European languages, such as English, exists in India supports the idea of related languages. Mother is referred to as mata in Sanskrit, and the accusative form is matarum Dvau-two Trayah-three as ti-he is, etc.
Prior to the discovery of Sanskrit, the grammars now used in Europe were based on somewhat hazy Greek precedents. The characteristics of each language were not precisely defined. It is important to note that the discovery of Sanskrit coincided with the emergence of false ideas about linguistic relationships, which persisted for a short period of time that Sanskrit was the source of European languages. However, this viewpoint was disproved by the fact that Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, and other languages were later variations of a single primordial language. Languages were divided into two categories by comparatives: morphological and genealogical. Languages that have a common ancestor are classified based on their connection to one another. It divides languages into many language families.
Languages are categorized morphologically, rather than genealogically, according to their structural characteristics. The following categories of languages are determined by morphological classification: Isolating Chinese; Vietnamese; Japan; etc. Analytic Russian; English; German; etc Russian; English; German; etc. Turkish languages and others are agglutinative. Language system comparisons in genetic typology are done both synchronically and diachronically. Genetic link is not taken into account in the second situation, though. The systematization of linguistic phenomena from many languages according to their unique structural properties is what is meant by structural linguistic typology [12,89].
The study of structural typology enables the identification of some characteristics as universal, distinctive, and exceptional. Many linguists recognize typology as a subfield of linguistics, but what is the precise name of this subfield?
“language typology”?
“linguistic typology”?
or maybe simply “comparative linguistics”?
Having a unique name would have a number of advantages for the practitioners, so it seems that they should be interested in converging on a single term. For example, when specifying the subfield in submitting an abstract, or when looking up information, or simply when communicating one’s specialization to others.
Now within linguistics, the difference between “language typology” and “linguistic typology” does not really matter, because everyone knows that there is no difference, and in many contexts, “typology” alone is entirely sufficient. But suppose that you indicate your specialization in Google Scholar, or you upload a typological paper to Academia.edu – what do you indicate as the relevant subfield? If you use simply “typology”, no linguists may have no idea what is meant, and because of the duality of “language typology” and “linguistic typology”, automatic aggregation does not work properly [25,68].
Historically, it seems clear that “language typology” is the older term, and has become current in the 1970s though “typology” and “typological” go back to 1901. The older term appears on the title of a 2001 two-volume handbook in the title of the journal STUF and on the title of two recent prominent publications [15,61].
However, in the 1980s, a competitor arose: “linguistic typology” was used in the titles of Comrie and Ramat, and in 1997, Frans Plank and Mouton de Gruyter founded the journal “Linguistic Typology”. In the 2000s, the latter term spread, and now we have two handbooks on “linguistic typology”. There is evidently no difference in reference intended, so are we dealing with random drift the sort of language change – or linguistic change ? – that some functionalists regard as impossible? Or is there some other reason why the sub discipline seems to be shifting to “linguistic typology”? [13,84].
Here’s a suspicion: the innovative use of “linguistic typology” in Comrie might have to do with euphony: “Language universals and linguistic typology” sounds less repetitive than “Language universals and language typology”; and the innovative use of “Linguistic typology” in Ramat might have been triggered by an assonance with the Italian original “Linguistica tipologica”, literally “Typological linguistics”.
Could the change have to do with the association of “linguistic” with the field of linguistics? After all, for many speakers, “linguistic” can mean either ‘relating to languages’ or ‘relating to linguistics’. If so, then there would be a semantic difference between the two terms – “linguistic typology” would translate into German as “linguistische Typologie” a term that I have never heard, I think, not as “Sprachtypologie.” But if this were intended, then a shift to the even clearer “typological linguistics” would be preferable. Having an ambiguous label for a sub discipline seems to be even worse than having two synonymous labels.
But actually, any term that contains “typology” has a serious disadvantage: It is quite opaque to outsiders. Cross-disciplinary dialogue and collaboration seem to be getting more and more important, so we might consider an entirely different name – perhaps simply 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.
A possible objection might be the earlier use of “vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft” for historical-comparative linguistics. But this is obsolete now, and linguists who study diachronic developments nowadays generally call themselves “historical linguists”, though the newer terms “phylogenetic linguistics” or even “phylolinguistics” and “evolutionary linguistics” seem to be spreading fast.
From my perspective, the term “comparative linguistics” for what used to be called “language/linguistic typology” has a big advantage: Not only is it fully transparent, but it also fails to signal association with a particular sub community – 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 them terminologically. Generative linguists have often used the terms “comparative grammar” and “comparative syntax” though apparently less so in recent years.
In any event, the question of the name of my sub discipline of linguistics seems at least not entirely irrelevant, but I have never seen it discussed explicitly. Maybe it would not be a complete waste of time to engage in some discussion. Typology is the study of linguistic systems and recurring patterns of linguistic systems. Universals are typological generalizations based on these recurring patterns. Linguistic typology took off in its modern form with the ground-breaking research of Joseph Greenberg, such as, for example, his seminal paper on a cross-linguistic survey of word order leading to a series of implicational universals. Greenberg also attempted to establish methods for quantifying typological studies, in order that linguistic typology could meet scientific standards [24, 73].