LING 1F94 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Teddy Bear, Audiology, Pacifier
4 Mar 2016
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Document Summary
Classification of languages continued from lecture seven. Linguistic typology: shared structural characteristics; similar structural patterns: typologically similar languages are not necessarily related; eg. swahili, thai, and english are all svo, while korean and urdu are both sov. Genetic classification: common descent: genetically related languages may be typologically quite different; eg. english and urdu are both indo-european in origin. Areal classification: similar characteristics because of language contact; geographically similar; japanese and korean: areally classified languages may not be structurally or genetically similar; typically, similarities are limited to loan words, morphemes, and sounds. Absolute universals: eg. all languages have stops. Universal tendencies: text does not give an example but, most languages have colour terms and quantifiers. Implicational universals: if you have one thing, that implies you must have another thing; eg. if a language has voiced stops, it must also have voiceless stops. Even non-universal features pattern in similar ways in a variety of.
