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Language Universals and Linguistic Typology Language Universals and Linguistic Typology SYNTAX AND MORPHOLOGY Bernard Comrie Second Edition The University of Chicago Press I Imi \ ’utvmtty of Chicago Preas3 Chicago 60637 HhuM I Mack well Publisher Limited, Oxford il 11:981,1989 by Bernard Comrie All rights reserved. Originally published 1981 Sm>nd Edition 1989 Printed in Great Britain 98 97 96 95 94 93 92 91 90 89 54321 International Standard Book Number: 0-226-11433-3 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 89-040280 CONTENTS Preface to the second edition ix Preface to the first edition xi Preface to the second priming xiv 1 LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS i 1 . 1 APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS I 1.1.1 Two major approaches I I .r ,2 The data base 5 i .r .3 Degrees of abstractness 12 1.2 CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS 15 1.2.1 Pormal and substantive univers ah 15 1.2.2 Implicational and non-implicational universals 17 1.2.3 Absolute universals and tendencies 19 1.3 EXPLANATIONS FOR LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS 23 1.3.1 Common genetic origin 23 i.^2 External explanations 24 1.4 SUMMARY *9 Notes and references 29 2 LANGUAGE TYPOLOGY 33 2.1 TYPOLOGY AND UNIVERSALS 33 2.2 TYPOLOGICAL PARAMETERS 3^ 1.3 MORPHOLOGICAL TYPOLOGY 42 .'<4 SOME FURTHER TYPOLOGICAL PARAMETERS 52 N otch and refcrcnccs 5^ CONTHNTS , I IIIH >RHTICAL PREREQUISITES 57 I C MlMANTfC ROLES 57 \.Z PRAGMATIC ROLES 02 3.3 GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS 65 3.4 MORPHOLOGICAL CASES JO 3.5 ILLUSTRATION: ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN CLAUSE STRUCTURE 74 Notes and references 84 4 WORD ORDER 86 4.1 WORD ORDER PARAMETERS 87 4.2 CORRELATIONS AMONG WORD ORDER PARAMETERS 92 4.2.1 Greenberg's correlations 92 4.2.2 Generalizations of Greenbêrg’s results 94 4.2.3 Critique of the generalizations 99 4.3 THE VALUE OF WORD ORDER TYPOLOGY 102 Notes and references 102 5 SUBJECT 104 5.1 THE PROBLEM IO4 5.2 ON DEFINITIONS AND CATEGORIES I06 5.3 ERGATIVITY 110 5.4 SEMANTIC AND PRAGMATIC FACTORS Il6 Notes and references 123 6 CASE MARKING 124 6.1 THE DISCRIMINATORY FUNCTION OF CASBS 124 6-2 NATURAL INFORMATION FLOW IN THE TRANSITIVE CONSTRUCTION 127 6.2.1 Inverse forms 129 6.2.2 Differential marking of A and P 129 6.3 SUMMARY 136 Notes and references 136 CONTENTS vií 7 RELATIVE CLAUSES 138 7 .1 SOME TYPOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH RELATIVE CLAUSES 1 38 7.2 TYPES OF RELATIVE CLAUSE 142 7.2.1 Defining the notion rdative clause 142 7.2.2 Word order and relative clause types 145 7.2 .3 The role of the head in the relative clause 14 7 7 .2 .4 The role of the head in the main clause 153 7.3 ACCESSIBILITY TO RELATIVE CLAUSE FORMATION 155 7.3.1 Simplex sentences 155 7 .3 .2 Complex constructions 160 7 .3 .3 The distribution of relative clause types 163 Notes and references 163 8 C A U S A T IV E C O N S T R U C T IO N S 165 8,1 PARAMETERS IN THE STUDY OF CAUSATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 1 66 8 .1.x Formalparameters 166 8.1.2 Semantic parameters 171 8.2 VALENCY CHANGES IN MORPHOLOGICAL CAUSATIVES 1 74 Notes and references 184 9 ANIMACY 185 9 .r INTRODUCTION: THE NATURE OF ANIMACY 185 9.2 PHENOMENA CONTROLLED BY ANIMACY 188 9.3 CONCEPTUAL ANIMACY DISTINCTIONS 194 9.4 CONCLUSIONS: THE NATURE OF ANIMACY 197 Notes and references 200 10 TYPOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS 201 10.1 d ia c h h o n h ; d im e n s io n s in u n iv u r sa l s AND TYPOLOGY 201 10.2 AR1ÍAI. TYPOLOGY 204 v iii CONTENTS 10.3 TYPOLOGY AND RECONSTRUCTION 210 10.3.1 Word order typology 211 10.3.2 Word order and morpheme order 216 10.4 TYPOLOGY AND DIACHRONIC EXPLANATION 219 Notes and references 225 11 CONCLUSIONS AND PROSPECTS 227 Map showing location of languages cited 234 References 236 Index of languages 246 Index of proper names 257 Index of topics 259 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION The continuing demand for Language Universal* and Linguistic Typology necessitates yet another reprinting. In earlier reprintings, I restricted changes to corrections of typographical and other minor errors and updating of bibliographical information. However, developments since 1980 (when I completed the manuscript of the first edition), both spec­ ifically in universals and typology and more generally in grammatical theory, have rendered a somewhat more substantial reworking of the text essential. The main changes are in chapter i, where a now outdated comparison of different data bases has been replaced by new material, and in chapter n , which is substantially new. The other chapters remain more or less the same, though new material has been added to chapter 2; the main differences are clarifications of certain parts of the texts and a more substantial updating of the bibliography. I am grateful to those who reviewed the first edition and to all those who have given me comments in various ways, not least among them my own students at the University of Southern California. The basic aim of the book remains, as in the first edition, to provide an introduction to the study of language universals and typology from an, albeit slightly modifiedJ Greenbergian perspective. I have resisted the attempt to engage in protracted dialogue with proponents of other approaches or even to provide extension commentary on such other approaches, as this would be out of place in an introductory text of this kind. I have retained essentially the same coverage of topics, though it should be realized that my selection of topics to illustrate work on universals and typology is in large measure personal. II is perhaps worth cm plu» si/.ing ihc main features of my outlook on language universals and lypolo^v :1!i icprcKcnicii in the body of this book. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION X The languages of the world provide us with a rich variety of data on the basis of which we can study the general properties of the human language potential. (The richness of this material should not blind us to its fragility; languages are dying out at an alarming rate, a fact which raises suprisingly little public concern, even among those who do express alarm at the destruc­ tion of other parts of our environment.) In order to understand the human linguistic potential, we must develop methods* descriptions, and analyses that are not only sufficiently constrained to say interesting things about those properties that are common to all languages but also sufficiently flexible to permit insightful characterization of the degree of variation that we find among languages * Comparison of languages should be driven primarily by the varied data that languages present to us; while any comparison, or indeed any description, reQuires some degree of abstractness of representation, reliance on overly abstract approaches to linguistic description substantially increases the possibility that what will be compared are not languages but linguists' conceptions ( or misconceptions) of languages. This does not imply an atheoretical stance, though it does imply an attitude that is at least cautious to some of the claims of currently dominant grammatical theories. Linguists working on universals and typology from the perspective advocated here are obliged to seek explanations for the cross-linguistic generalizations they establish; adoption a priori of a particular explanation (especially a largely untestable one such as innateness) serves only to blind the linguist to the possibility of alternative explanations. The approach that I present in this book is thus part of an attempt to provide an explanatory account of the nature of human language. Los Angeles, August 1988 Bernard Comrie PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION After a period when the frontiers of linguistic research seemed to be con­ cerned primarily with the analysis of English syntax, the last decade has seen a remarkable upsurge of interest in problems of language universals and linguistic typology using data from a wide range of languages. Despite the vast amount of work that has been carried out within this framework* there has been, to date, no general introductory work that has attempted to syn­ thesize the main characteristics of this approach for the student of linguistics, who has had to turn almost from the very beginning to specialist literature on individual topics in article form. This book aims to fill this gap, to provide the advanced undergraduate and graduate student with an overview of the maJor current approaches to language universals and typology, with illustra­ tions of the successes of this method - and also warnings about some of the dangers. In a field where so much literature has arisen in a relatively short period* this book is necessarily very selective in the range of topics chosen, with preference for going into certain topics in depth rather than giving a super­ ficial overview of the whole field. I have also restricted coverage, for the most part, to recent work on universals and typology, rather than try to give a historical account of earlier work in this area, although earlier work is men- i ioned, especially to the extent that it has not been subsumed by more recent research. Some of the selectivity necessarily reflects my own biases, towards iho.se areas where I have worked myself or where I feel the most exciting results have been forthcoming. The book is concerned almost entirely with nyntactico-semantic universals, although on occasion phonological univer- uah are also used as illustrative material.
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