Classification

► SEMINAR 4. CLASSIFICATION OF COMPARATIVE TYPOLOGY

Exercise 1.

1. 
   How do you understand the term "etalon language"?
   
2. 
   What kinds of classification of languages do you know?
   
3. 
   Speak about characteristic features of typological classification.
   
4. 
   Speak about each type of languages.
   
5. 
   How do you understand the term "typological theory"?
   
6. 
   How do you understand levels of language hierarchy?
   
7. 
   What are the main specific features of each type of typology?
   
8. 
   What does the morphological typology study?
   
9. 
   Characterize syntactic typology?
   
10. 
    What does lexical typology study?
    

Exercise 2. Read the statement below and find some mistakes among them.

Typology is a branch of science which is typical to all sciences without any exception. In this respect, their typological method is not limited to the sphere of one science. Typology may be divided into Non-linguistic typology, Linguistic typology, Paralinguistic typology.
Non-linguistic typology is the subject matter of the sciences except linguistics. It can be political typology, medical or economic typology as well. Linguistic typology is a new branch of general linguistics which studies the systems of languages comparatively, also finds common laws of languages and establishes differences and similarities between them. And due to David Crystal’s book “Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics”, Non- linguistic Typology is explained in this way: “A branch of linguistics which studies the structural similarities between languages, regardless of their history, as part of an attempt to establish a satisfactory classification, or typology, of languages. The typological comparison is thus distinguished from the historical comparison of languages and its groupings can coincide with those set up by the historical method”. Nowadays a lot of terms are used for defining this very type of science, such as Linguistic Typology, Comparative Typology, Contrastive Typology. But with the help of analyzing historical background, we will be able to realize the main notion of this branch of Linguistics. Typology is understood as a science of a whole comparison that has a large number of factors of its development. However, if it is described as a structural typology, then numbers of factors of its appearance will diminish. As Maslow said: “Typology does not deal with a limited number of languages. If it does, then it should be called “characterlogy” or “comparative description”. Since the number of languages typology deals with can’t be counted, languages are referred as an unlimited number of languages. The development of typology was very slow. It has several factors that influence to its development which are but not limited to typological imitation, “Port Royal Grammar”, historical comparative linguistics, theprocess of studying of languages without awriting system, theinfluence of writing, phonetics and practical and theoretical study of languages.
Structural similarities between languages, regardless of their history, as part of an attempt to establish a satisfactory classification, or typology, of languages. The typological comparison is thus distinguished from the historical comparison of languages and its groupings can coincide with those set up by the historical method”. Nowadays a lot of terms are used for defining this very type of science, such as Linguistic Typology, Comparative Typology, Contrastive Typology. But with the help of analyzing historical background, we will be able to realize the main notion of this branch of Linguistics. Typology is understood as a science of a whole comparison that has a large number of factors of its development. However, if it is described as a structural typology, then numbers of factors of its appearance will diminish. As Maslow said: “Typology does not deal with a limited number of languages. If it does, then it should be called “characterlogy” or “comparative description”. Since the number of languages typology deals with can’t be counted, languages are referred as an unlimited number of languages. The development of typology was very slow. It has several factors that influence to its development which are but not limited to typological imitation, “Port Royal Grammar”, historical comparative linguistics, theprocess of studying of languages without awriting system, theinfluence of writing, phonetics and practical and theoretical study of languages.