Linguistic Typology as a subject

6. DEFINITION OF THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY

• The most popular definition of the subject matter seems to be "Linguistic typol­ogy is a branch of general linguistics, field of study aiming at identifying such simi­larities and distinctive features of languages that do not depend on genetic origin or influence of languages to one another. Typology strives to identify and look at the most significant features that affect other spheres of language systems, e.g. the way of junction of meaningful parts of the word or the so-called structure of the sentence in the language". Typological studies base on materials of representative sampling (репрезентативная выборка) from many world languages, so that the findings and conclusions made on the results of such analysis can be applied to the entire majority of languages (in cases of linguistic universals).

Linguistic typology shows special interest to the so-called exotic or non-studied languages, e.g. languages of ethnicities of South-East Asia, Africa, Ocean side or American Indian tribes. Still the data of well-known, expanded and well-studied lan­guages may to the similar extent become the subject matter of a typological study.

• Linguistic typology shows special interest to the so-called exotic or non-studied languages, e.g. languages of ethnicities of South-East Asia, Africa, Ocean side or American Indian tribes. Still the data of well-known, expanded and well-studied lan­guages may to the similar extent become the subject matter of a typological study.
• Linguistic typology not only systemizes, generalizes and classifies the facts of language
• isomorphism and allomorphism but also explains them.

The basis of Linguistic Typology

• 1) Typological Classification;
• 2) Linguistic Universals;
• 3) Etalon Language;
• 4) Typological Theory.

The types of linguistic comparison can thus be illustrated as follows;

• genetic/genealogical or historic comparison/reconstruction of common archi/pra- forms of genetically related languages. Special attention should
• to pay closely and distantly related languages.
• typological comparison of systems and sub-systems of languages: a) related; b) non-related; c) structurally similar; d) structurally non-similar.
• Areal Linguistics: comparison of neighboring languages;
• Dominant classification by Melnikov defining language types based on domi­nant features.5