Our courses: Typology (1 and 2)

The course is dedicated to the methodological interfaces between two apparently unrelated – and sometimes even opposed – branches of the study of language, the typology as a study of linguistic diversity, the historical linguistics as the diachronic study of language, and intralinguistic variation. In typology, there is a strong diachronic component which, though having evolved almost together with the modern typology itself (as reflected in the works by Joseph Greenberg) has long been peripheral and re-emerged as an influential and, for some, the main line of research e.g. in the works of William Croft and Sonia Christofaro. The course considers this ‘dynamicisation’ of typology through theoretical writings and case studies of its proponents. There is also an emerging interest to the relation of typology to various types of microvariation, including cross-family variation of comparable linguistic structures and even intralinguistic variation. Different formal patterns representing the same function within the same language often reflect the cross-linguistic competition of the same patterns, which, as Croft suggests, provides a link between (diachronic) typology to issues such as spread of language change, traditionally considered to be part of the sociolinguistic research agenda.