1 Introducing linguistic typology 1
1.1 What do linguistic typologists study? 1
1.2 Typological analysis 4
1.3 Typology of language universals 6
1.4 Language universals and linguistic typology 8
1.5 Assumptions and problems in typological analysis 9
1.5.1 Cross-linguistic comparability 10
1.5.2 The Principle of Uniformitarianism 15
1.5.3 Approaches to language sampling 17
1.5.4 Determining language sample sizes 32
1.5.5 Problems with data 39
1.6 Partial typology vs.holistic typology 41
1.7 Organization of the rest of the book 45
2 Basic word order 49
2.1 What is basic word order? 49
2.2 Early research on basic word order 52
2.2.1 The inception of word order typology 52
2.2.2 The OV-VO typology 56
2.2.3 Making language universals exceptionless 68
2.3 Explaining the distribution of the basic clausal word orders 78
2.4 Back to the OV-VO typology:the Branching Direction Theory 85
2.5 Seeking a global explanation:the Early Immediate Constituents Theory 99
2.6 From word order to morpheme order:the suffixing preference 119
2.7 Closing remarks 133
3 Case marking 138
3.1 Introduction 138
3.2 A,S and P,and types of case marking 140
3.2.1 Nominative-accusative system 142
3.2.2 Ergative-absolutive system 143
3.2.3 Tripartite system 145
3.2.4 AP/S system 146
3.2.5 Neutral system 146
3.3 More types of case marking 147
3.3.1 Split-ergative system 147
3.3.2 Active-stative system 150
3.3.3 Direct-inverse system 153
3.4 Distribution of the case marking systems 155
3.5 The discriminatory view of case marking 156
3.6 The indexing view of case marking 159
3.7 The discriminatory view vs.the indexing view 165
3.8 The Nominal Hierarchy and the split-ergative system 167
3.9 Towards a unified explanation:attention flow and viewpoint 170
3.10 Ergativity from discourse to grammar 178
3.11 Case marking in altered or non-basic constructions 181
3.11.1 Passive 182
3.11.2 Antipassive 184
3.11.3 Noun incorporation 187
3.11.4 Advancement of obliques to P 190
3.12 Syntactic ergativity 194
3.13 Head marking vs.dependent marking 197
3.14 Case marking type and word order type 202
4 Relative clauses 211
4.1 Introduction 211
4.2 The position of the head noun vis-à-vis the restricting clause 212
4.3 Expression of the head noun 216
4.3.1 The obliteration strategy 217
4.3.2 The pronoun-retention strategy 218
4.3.3 The relative-pronoun strategy 219
4.3.4 Language-internal distribution of the relativization strategies 220
4.4 Accessibility Hierarchy: accessibility to relativization 222
4.5 Conspiracy in relativization 227
4.6 Correlations between RC-related properties 232
4.7 The head noun in the main clause 235
4.8 Subject primacy vs.discourse preferences in relativization 237
4.9 RC type and word order type 241
4.10 The role of processing in the distribution of RC types 245
4.11 The AH and structural complexity 253
5 Causatives 257
5.1 Introduction 257
5.2 The morphologically based typology of causative constructions 259
5.3 The syntax of the causee NP:the Case Hierarchy 263
5.4 Conspiracy in causativization 268
5.5 Doubling:coding vs.grammatical relation 271
5.6 Causation types and causative types 275
5.7 The case marking of the causee NP 283
5.8 The conceptual integration of the causee in the causative event 286
5.9 Towards a typology of causative constructions 292
6 The application of linguistic typology 297
6.1 Introduction 297
6.2 Linguistic typology and historical linguistics 298
6.2.1 Early attempts at word order reconstruction 300
6.2.2 Linguistic typology as a control on,and a tool in,reconstruction 305
6.2.3 Linguistic typology and linguistic prehistory 312
6.3 Linguistic typology and language acquisition 318
6.3.1 Accessibility to relativization in FLA 320
6.3.2 Accessibility to relativization in SLA 326
6.3.3 Two potential FLA/SLA areas of application 333
6.3.4 Closing remarks 334
7 European approaches to linguistic typology 338
7.1 Introduction 338
7.2 The Leningrad Typology Group 340
7.3 The Cologne UNITYP Group 345
7.4 The Prague School Typology 350
7.5 Epilogue 356
Bibliograpby 362
Autbor Index 383
Language Index 388
Subject Index 392