Impact Factor: 2.0

Published since January 1, 1997

Linguistic Typology

ISSN: 1613-415X

Editor-in-chief: Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

Founded by: Frans Plank

About this journal

Objective

Linguistic Typology provides a forum for all work of relevance to the study of language typology and cross-linguistic variation. It welcomes work taking a typological perspective on all domains of the structure of spoken and signed languages, including historical change, language processing, and sociolinguistics. Diverse descriptive and theoretical frameworks are welcomed so long as they have a clear bearing on the study of cross-linguistic variation. We welcome cross-disciplinary approaches to the study of linguistic diversity, as well as work dealing with just one or a few languages, as long as it is typologically informed and typologically and theoretically relevant, and contains new empirical evidence.

Linguistic Typology is published by De Gruyter Mouton for the Association for Linguistic Typology (ALT). For membership and subscription details, contact the Secretary: Dmitry Idiatov

Article formats

• Research articles
• Target articles with peer commentary (If you have an idea for one, contact the Editor)
• Special issues (If you have an idea for a Special Issue, contact the Editor)
• Debates (contact the Editor)
• Language profiles, family portraits and areal surveys
• Review articles (reviewing two or more books, or a whole subject area)
• Book reviews (all book reviews are commissioned by Review Editors)
• Methodological contributions (e.g., reports on and reviews of toolkits, databases, software, collection of texts and corpora, archival collections resulting from fieldwork etc.) These should include a discussion of how/why the material is of typological relevance.
• Squibs (very short and often humorous pieces on a very specific topic intended to encourage debate)
• Contact the Editor if you have an idea that is not represented here

Your Benefits

broad focus on the study of language typology and cross-linguistic variation
timely publication of high-quality peer-reviewed articles
freely available Editor’s choice articles

History

Linguistic Typology has been published by Mouton de Gruyter / De Gruyter Mouton for the Association for Linguistic Typology (ALT) since 1997. Frans Plank (Konstanz / Oxford) was the Founding Editor of the journal, and, with volume 22, Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm took over in 2018.

Other publications in the field

Empirical Approaches to Language Typology [EALT]
Linguistics
Linguistics Vanguard
Mouton Handbooks of Indo-European Typology [MHIET]
STUF – Language Typology and Universals

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Supplementary Materials

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Volume 27 Issue 2

July 2023

Publicly Available July 10, 2023

Frontmatter

Page range: i-iv

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Articles

Publicly Available February 1, 2023

Current research in phonological typology

Steven Moran, Shelece Easterday, Eitan Grossman

Page range: 223-243

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April 28, 2023

Investigating the ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘why’ of global phonological typology

Ian Maddieson

Page range: 245-266

Abstract

What? Where? and Why? are the principal questions to ask in relation to linguistic typological patterns, in phonology as elsewhere. However, assembling sufficient and reliable information on a large diverse sample of languages presents challenges. Some of these issues are discussed in this paper, based on the practices seen in various database projects, including WALS and LAPSyD and in the wider literature. The challenge of recognizing areal convergence can be aided by simple mapping techniques. The most scientifically challenging issue is explaining ‘why’ as this requires considering multiple physiological, psychological, social, and other effects. Recent efforts to correlate phonological features with climatic and environmental factors offer a further potentially interesting way forward.

Open Access January 5, 2023

Canonical phonology and criterial conflicts: relating and resolving four dilemmas of phonological typology

Erich R. Round

Page range: 267-287

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Abstract

Typologists strive to compare like with like, but four dilemmas make this challenging in phonology: (1) the non-uniqueness of phonological analysis; and the existence of (2) multiple levels of analysis; (3) multiple theories of phonology; and (4) analytical interdependencies between phonological phenomena. Here I argue that the four dilemmas can be coherently related, and then addressed together. I introduce the concept of criterial conflicts, derived from notions in canonical typology. Criterial conflicts arise in the presence of an unexpected pairing of properties that pulls an analysis in two directions. This contradictory pull and its resolution in different directions leads by various paths to the four dilemmas. Concrete strategies are then discussed for countering the common, underlying problem. I observe that criterial conflicts are well handled by factorial analysis (i.e., multiple normalization) and multivariate analysis, but not by simple normalization. Illustrative examples are taken from the canonical typology of segments.

Open Access December 26, 2022

Refining explanation in Evolutionary Phonology: macro-typologies and targeted typologies in action

Juliette Blevins, Ander Egurtzegi

Page range: 289-311

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Abstract

In this paper, we highlight the role of typology in providing an empirical basis for explanation within Evolutionary Phonology with a focus on rare sound patterns and extra-phonetic explanation. Broad typological surveys of sound patterns or macro-typologies that include phonetic detail may, at once, support universal tendencies and document rare sound patterns, offering arguments for theories in which universal tendencies based on phonetic explanation are emergent properties of markedness-free grammars. However, in order to explain rarity and explore extra-phonetic factors, targeted typologies, narrowed by specific structural properties or contact histories, may be necessary. In this study, the complementary roles of broad and targeted typologies are illustrated through recent case studies of three basic components of phonological systems—sound inventories, alternations, and phonotactics—, with a focus on non-phonetic explanations that have enhanced the predictive power of the Evolutionary framework.

December 26, 2022

The prosodic foot beyond prosodic prominence: a preliminary survey

Kirsten Culhane

Page range: 313-339

Abstract

This paper presents a preliminary survey of foot-sensitive phenomena and foot structure separate from prosodic prominence or classifications such as ‘iambic’ and ‘trochaic’. It considers the evidence for and structure of the foot in a sample of 30 languages which demonstrate at least one foot-sensitive phenomenon which cannot be attributed to prosodic prominence. It finds that in the sample, there is considerable diversity in terms of: a) the type of evidence for and role played by the foot, b) the extent to which there is evidence for the foot, and c) the segmental structure of the foot. These findings demonstrate that the role of the foot is more diverse than often characterised. The findings of this paper also demonstrate that cross-linguistic differences between foot structures are more fine-grained than differences in the distribution of prosodic prominence or syllable weight; accounting for the diversity observed requires reference to the segmental structure of feet. In light of these findings, this paper calls for more examination of the prosodic foot separate from prosodic prominence, and which takes into consideration the variables of cross-linguistic diversity documented here.

December 8, 2022

On the comparability of prosodic categories: why ‘stress’ is difficult

Nikolaus P. Himmelmann

Page range: 341-361

Abstract

This article argues that the prosodic category stress in West Germanic languages, which implicitly underlies practically all work on stress, is a complex cluster concept consisting of at least six dimensions which in turn involve a number of subdimensions. Because of its complexity, this concept is not useful for cross-linguistic comparison. A promising starting point for further typological inquiry is one of the six dimensions, i.e. acoustic and auditory prominence. However, identifying acoustic and auditory prominence distinctions cross-linguistically is also not straightforward and requires considerable empirical effort. Nevertheless, cross-linguistic comparison is still possible in the case of ‘difficult’ cluster concepts such as stress and does not require the use of arbitrary comparative concepts.

Open Access January 10, 2023

Bootstrap co-occurrence networks of consonants and the Basic Consonant Inventory

Dmitry Nikolaev

Page range: 363-380

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Abstract

It has been recently shown by Nikolaev and Grossman that it is possible to provide a fine-grained typological analysis of consonant inventories of the world’s languages by investigating co-occurrence classes of segments, i.e. groups of segments that tend to be found together in inventories. Nikolaev and Grossman argued that the structure of many of such co-occurrence classes is in contradiction with the Feature-Economy Principle. As a side product of this analysis, a new definition of the Basic Consonant Inventory (BCI)—a cluster of segments forming the bedrock of consonantal inventories of the world’s languages—was provided. This paper replicates the co-occurrence study in an arguably more robust way. In addition to making a methodological contribution, it shows that some of the co-occurrence classes defined by Nikolaev and Grossman, including the BCI, are not statistically stable and may be an artefact of the imbalance in the language sample used for the analysis. The findings of the authors regarding the Feature-Economy Principle, however, were corroborated.

Open Access January 12, 2023

Frequent violation of the sonority sequencing principle in hundreds of languages: how often and by which sequences?

Ruihua Yin, Jeroen van de Weijer, Erich R. Round

Page range: 381-403

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Abstract

The Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) is a fundamental governing principle of syllable structure; however, its details remain contested. This study aims to clarify the empirical status of the SSP in a cross-linguistic study of 496 languages. We adopt a phonetically-grounded definition of sonority – acoustic intensity – and examine how many languages contain SSP-violating clusters word-initially and word-finally. We consider the treatment of complex segments both as sonority units and as clusters. We find a significant proportion of languages violate the SSP: almost one half of the language sample. We examine which clusters cause the violations, and find a wide range: not only the notorious case of clusters with sibilants, but also with nasals, approximants and other obstruents. Violations in onsets and codas are not symmetrical, especially when complex segments are treated as units. We discuss where existing theoretical accounts of the SSP require further development to account for our crosslinguistic results.

January 5, 2023

Diachronic phonological typology: understanding inventory structure through sound change dynamics

Shelece Easterday, Joan Bybee

Page range: 405-427

Abstract

We advocate for a diachronic typological approach to phonology, arguing that explanation for phonological structure must appeal to dynamic processes. We outline basic assumptions and explanatory mechanisms of this framework and demonstrate its utility by applying it to aspects of consonant phoneme inventory structure. Examining sound change paths through which palatal(ized) and ejective consonants emerge, we show that initial conditions in a language influence the likelihood of a sound change occurring, and that sound change trajectories may differ in their lifespans and the ease with which they are entered into. Regarding more general theoretical issues, we find that focusing on the dynamic processes that create inventories is more likely to produce accurate predictions about the patterns observed than structural generalizations such as feature economy. We conclude that further elucidating the details of sound change will lead to a fuller and more explanatory phonological typology.

January 4, 2023

Place typology and evolution of implosives in Indo-Aryan languages

Qandeel Hussain, Jeff Mielke

Page range: 429-453

Abstract

It is widely known that implosives are prevalent in African languages. While Sindhi is considered a textbook example of implosives in Indo-Aryan, the exact distribution of implosives, their development, and place typology are still poorly understood. The present study investigates the typology and evolution of implosives in Indo-Aryan languages and shows that the relationship between implosion and place of articulation in these languages is different from what is seen in global studies. We argue that the relatively high frequency of retroflex implosives in Indo-Aryan languages is due to the high frequency of retroflexes in those languages in general. The findings also indicate that South Asia is another hotspot where languages possess typologically-overloaded inventories of implosives at bilabial, dental-alveolar, retroflex, palatal, and/or velar places of articulation. The aerodynamic constraints and articulatory similarities between implosives and voiced geminates indicate a plausible sound change which led to the evolution of implosives in Indo-Aryan languages.

December 20, 2022

Estimating areal effects in typology: a case study of African phoneme inventories

Matías Guzmán Naranjo, Miri Mertner

Page range: 455-480

Abstract

In this paper, we combine several statistical techniques (multivariate probit models, Gaussian processes, and phylogenetic regression) into a new approach for exploring the areal patterns associated with the presence and absence of typological features. This model allows us to estimate and control for areal and genetic effects, the correlations between features, and their expected frequency of occurrence in the data. We use this model to explore the distribution of consonants in African languages, inferring several linguistic areas which have been proposed in the literature. Our results suggest that the combination of these methods is a promising new way of approaching language contact.

March 20, 2023

Word prosody of African versus European-origin words in Afro-European creoles

Ana Lívia Agostinho

Page range: 481-507

Abstract

This paper is concerned with word-prosodic systems of Afro-European creole languages that show a correlation between the lexical origin (African vs. European) and prosodic pattern. The discussion is based on the evidence from four languages: Saramaccan, Nigerian Pidgin English, Pichi, and Lung’Ie. I examine how the study of word-prosodic systems of creoles can contribute to phonological typology and to the debate of whether creoles are different from non-creoles. I hypothesize that such systems are the result of extreme language contact and can only be found in creole languages. The existence of these systems further confirms that sociohistorical processes – such as historic contact – can shape phonological systems. Finally, I conclude that the analysis of African-origin words is crucial to further our understanding of creole phonology.

May 12, 2023

Towards a phonological typology of the Kalahari Basin Area languages

Hirosi Nakagawa, Alena Witzlack-Makarevich, Daniel Auer, Anne-Maria Fehn, Linda Ammann Gerlach, Tom Güldemann, Sylvanus Job, Florian Lionnet, Christfried Naumann, Hitomi Ono, Lee J. Pratchett

Page range: 509-535

Abstract

This article reports some results of the first large-scale, comprehensive survey of the phonological systems of the Khoisan languages of the Kalahari Basin Area. These languages are famous for their large sets of click phonemes, a typologically rare characteristic otherwise found only in a limited number of languages worldwide. They are also unique because the click phonemes carry a high functional load in terms of phonemic and lexical distinctions in the respective systems. Finally, these languages have strikingly similar and highly skewed root phonotactics. The article provides empirical support for a range of claims and speculations that have been made about these typologically rare systems of the Kalahari Basin Area.

February 22, 2023

The typological frequency of consonants is highly predictive of their order of acquisition in English

Caleb Everett, Sophie Schwartz

Page range: 537-552

Abstract

The order of acquisition of consonants by children is impacted by both language-specific and species-wide factors. The latter factors also help to motivate the crosslinguistic commonness of some consonants. Here we explore the extent of overlap between crosslinguistic commonness and order of acquisition. We test how well the typological commonness of consonants is predictive of their order of acquisition in English, and vice versa, helping to shed light on the extent to which general cognitive and physical factors are explanatory vis-à-vis the acquisition of specific consonant types. We utilize several different sources to demonstrate that typological frequency and order of acquisition are indeed highly mutually predictive. We rely on acquisition data from English. We demonstrate that the crosslinguistic usage of a consonant is a better predictor of its order of acquisition than the language-specific factors tested.

Ahead of Print / Just Accepted

Ahead of Print / Just Accepted

Volume 27 (2023)

Volume 26 (2022)

Volume 25 (2021)

Volume 24 (2020)

Volume 23 (2019)

Volume 22 (2018)

Volume 21 (2017)

Volume 20 (2016)

Volume 19 (2015)

Volume 18 (2014)

Volume 17 (2013)

Volume 16 (2012)

Volume 15 (2011)

Volume 14 (2010)

Volume 13 (2009)

Volume 12 (2008)

Volume 11 (2007)

Volume 10 (2006)

Volume 9 (2005)

Volume 8 (2004)

Volume 7 (2003)

Volume 6 (2003)

Volume 5 (2001)

Volume 4 (2000)

Volume 3 (1999)

Volume 2 (1998)

Volume 1 (1997)

Journal Impact Factor	2.0	2022, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2023)
5-year Journal Impact Factor	2.3	2022, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2023)
Journal Citation Indicator	1.65	2022, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2023)
CiteScore	3.8	2022, Scopus (Elsevier B.V., 2023)
SCImago Journal Rank	1.058	2022, SJR (Scimago Lab, 2023; Data Source: Scopus)
Source Normalized Impact per Paper	2.698	2022, CWTS Journal Indicators (CWTS B.V., 2023; Data Source: Scopus)

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Editorial

Editor
Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
Stockholm University, Sweden
e-mail: Linguistic_Typology@degruyter.com

Founding Editor
Frans Plank
Somerville College, University of Oxford, UK

Review Editors

Alena Witzlack-Makarevich (General Review Editor)
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada (Grammar Review Editor)
University of Alberta, Canada

Assistant Editor
Angela Terrill
University of the South Pacific, Fiji
Punctilious Marvelid Ltd.
e-mail: punctilious.editing@gmail.com

Associate Editors
Dan Dediu (University of Barcelona, Spain)
Patience Epps (University of Texas, Austin, USA)
Jeff Mielke (North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA)
Marianne Mithun (University of California at Santa Barbara, USA)
Brigitte Pakendorf (Dynamique du Langage, CNRS, Lyon, France)
Masha Polinsky (University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA)
Mark van de Velde (LLACAN, Centre national de la recherche scientifique & Inalco, France)
Jean-Christophe Verstraete (University of Leuven, Belgium)
Fernando Zúñiga (Universität Bern, Switzerland)

(Deutsch)

Online ISSN: 1613-415X
Print ISSN: 1430-0532
Type: Journal
Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
First published: January 1, 1997
Publication Frequency: 3 Issues per Year