LING: lesson 2 (typology pt 2)

types of linguistic typologies?

1. morphological typology

2. word order typology

3. complement structures

4. passive and cuasative structures

5. phonological typology (and tones)

What is morphological typology?

classifying languages according to its morphological structures (analytic vs synthetic)

What are analytic languages?

= isolating languages

one word has one morpheme

e.g. Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Lao

what is a morpheme?

the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word

e.g.: unbreakable: morphemes are un- and -able

What are synthetic languages?

when more than one morpheme per word

e.g. European languages

What are polysynthetic languages?

languages wich combine a multitude of morphemes into one word

e.g. Inuit, Native American languages, …

What are the two main types of synthetic languages?

1. agglutinating

2. flective/ inflective

What is an agglutinating language?

a synsthetic language where:

• one morpheme has one meaning

• morpheme does not adapt to root, it is unchanging

• boundary between morphemes are obvious

• use of affixes and suffixes

What is a flective/ inflection language?

synthetic language with:

• accumulation of morphemes

• morphemes can have several meanings (e.g. -s can be plural or genitive)

• fusing of morphemes

• introflection: sound changes in morphemes

What is accumulation?

a characteristic of fusing synthetic languages

one suffix multiple meanings

e.g. Spanish: abl-o = 1st person present tense AND 3rd person past tense

What is fusion?

a characteristic of fusing synthetic languages

e.g.: English: your + possesive -es → fusion to yours

what is introflection/ inflection?

a characteristic of fusing synthetic languages

the vowel inside the word changes to show something, ROOT CHANGE

e.g.: German: gehen; ging; gegangen

how many morphemes in the word “singers”?

sing (ROOT) + er + s

→ 3 morphemes

5 character traits of analytic languages:

1. predominantly monosyllabic morphemes (and sometimes words)

2. extensive use of tonemes

3. extensive use of function words

4. relatively fixed word order

5. less rigid grammatical rules

What is the difference between Northern and Soutern sinitic languages (morphological typology)?

north is influenced by agglutinating languages

south is influenced by isolating/ analytic languages

What are the morphological characteristics of Chinese?

1. no inflection

2. S en O are often optional

3. function words are often optional

4. word boundaries and sentence boundaries are fuzzy

5. apart from the noun-verb distinction, word class distinctions are fuzzy (but often determined by word order!)

6. contextualized (pragmatically determined)

7. topic prominence

8. serial verb constructions

9. great number of discourse final perticles

10. classifier language

What is the word order typology for Chinese?

SVO (but not purely)

• has Rel-N and prepositional phrase - V structures!!

• and A-not-A question patterns

SOV order is possible with 把

use of prepositions (在，从，。。。) and postpositions (到，里，之前，。。。)

coverbal phrases precede the verb

What question does the typology of word order of Chinese raise?

wether there has been a change from SOV to SVO in the history

evidence: pronominal objects appear before verb in Ancient Chinese

but: 94% of oracle bones in SVO

Was the ancestral language of Chinse SOV?

What are the two main types of complement structures?

1. Verb-framing

2. Sattelite framing

What is verb-framing?

when certain features are encoded in the verb, such as motion, direction,…

e.g.: enter, exit, entrar,…

What is sattelite-framing?

The use of other mechanisms (instead of encoding in the verb) to express motion, direction,….

use of prepositions: e.g. uitgaan

What about the typology of complement structures in Chinese?

very special because of its complex complement structures

uses sattelite-framing to give extra meaning to the verb

probably a development from verb-framing to sattelite framing

2 examples of verbs evolving into passive markers

V [+ suffer] > instrumental > passive marker

V [+ give] > V [+ causative] > passive marker

how are causatives marked in Southern Min language?

1. tone alternation: e.g. break (tng7) - cause to break (tng2)

2. initial alternation: e.g. ascend (chiu7) - cause to ascend (chhiu7)

   1. non-aspirated - aspirated contrasts

   2. reflects Middle Chinese voiced - non-voiced contrasts

3. with ho 與

how are causatives marked in Chinese?

with 让:

• als transitief ww betekent het toestaan/ afstaan

  • 张三让李四哈哈大笑。

• als transitief ww met twee objecten in het semantische veld van geven: 把。。。让给。。。

what is 让 used for in Chinese?

• causative

• long passive: zelfde functie als 被

  • 那本书让张三借走了

  • 那本书让张三给借走了

  • NOOIT ZONDER AGENS: 那本书让借走了 IS FOUT

What is phonological typology?

involves comparing languages according to the number or type of sounds they contain

tries to establish phonological patterns and contrasts them in different languages/ dialects

e.g.: multilateral systems ( /p/ , /ph/, /b/, and /bh/) vs bilateral systems ( /p/ and /b/)