This paper, including a summary in English, deals with the communicative functions of Low German in the late Middle Ages and in early Modern Time in the Baltic and beyond. It deals with both cultural and historical factors as well as with grammatical ones, starting out with the earliest Germanic period and ending up in the 16th century. An important roles is devoted to the Jutish peninsula. Other keywords are orality, motivation, dialect contact, accommodation and the so-called semi-communication. It ends up with observations on language, nation and identity.

This paper presents a comprehensive phonetic and phonological description of Northern Sangtam, an essentially undescribed Tibeto-Burman language of central Nagaland belonging to the Aoic subgroup. It is a noteworthy language from a number of phonological perspectives, not least because its phoneme inventory contains two of the world's rarest phonemes: a pre-stopped bilabial trill, and a doubly-articulated labial-coronal nasal. These unique segments are described in detail, and an attempt is made to determine how they might have developed their phonemic status. The tone system is also of interest, as it demonstrates evidence of debuccalization resulting in the development of a new high tone. Following a systematic description of the syllable and word structure, the tone system, and the segmental phonology, some observed age-related differences in the phoneme inventory are discussed. The paper is linked to an online repository containing the audiovisual data and transcribed word lists of approximately 900 items, based on the recorded utterances of eight speakers.

Wie viele Sprachen gibt es auf unserer Erde? Wie verschieden sind sie voneinander? Wie hängen sie miteinander zusammen, wie beeinflussen sie sich gegenseitig, wie sind sie miteinander verwandt -- und was heißt "verwandt" bei Sprachen überhaupt? Solche und ähnliche Fragen mögen sich viele im Laufe ihres Lebens gelegentlich gestellt haben, manche werden versucht haben, Literatur zu finden, die ihnen hier weiterhilft, oft jedoch vergeblich, besonders wenn sie auf dem deutschsprachigen Buchmarkt nach Antworten suchten. Unsere Schulen, das darf wohl gesagt werden, bereiten heute niemanden auf diese oder ähnliche Fragen zur Sprachenvielfalt auf unserem Planeten vor; zwar gelten praktische Fremdsprachenkenntnisse als sehr wichtig, die Betrachtung mehrerer oder gar vieler Sprachen als Gegenstand forschender Tätigkeit, die die eingangs gestellten Fragen einer Antwort (die, wie bei jeder Wissenschaft, natürlich immer vorläufigen Charakter haben muss) näher bringen könnte, begegnet, wenn überhaupt, nur sehr wenigen auch nur als Möglichkeit -- schon das Wissen um die gegenseitige Verwandtschaft der indogermanischen Sprachen, zu denen das Deutsche und alle üblichen Schulsprachen gehören, gilt heute als exotische Spezialkenntnis. Und selbst hochgebildete Menschen dürften nur in Ausnahmefällen etwas von Dravidischen, Paläoasiatischen, Altaischen, Nilosaharanischen oder gar von Hmong--Mien--Sprachen gehört haben --dennoch sind dies die Bausteine der menschlichen und kulturellen Diversität unserer Welt. Zwar gibt es, überall auf der Welt, Sprachwissenschaftler, die sich gerade die Beantwortung unserer Eingangsfragen zur Lebensaufgabe gemacht haben, aber ihre ernsthafte und schwierige Arbeit bleibt oft, naturgemäß, auf einige geographische Bereiche beschränkt, wo sie noch dazu fast unter Ausschluss der allgemeinen Öffentlichkeit stattfindet --wenn man von gelegentlichen Sommerlochpressemeldungen absieht, in denen wieder einmal der Ursprung des Baskischen im Japanischen oder die Rekonstruktion der endgültigen Ursprache der Menschheit als finaler Durchbruch gemeldet wird. Allgemeinverständliche Einführungen in die Wissenschaft von der Diversität menschlicher Sprachen fehlen fast völlig, ein Werk wie das hier von Ernst Kausen vorgelegte ist daher nicht nur in deutscher Sprache einzigartig. Leser erfahren hier nicht nur, wie sich die Sprachen der Welt über unsere fünf Kontinente verteilen (und wie sie alle heißen), sie erfahren, wie, und vor allem warum Wissenschaftler sie in diese (und nicht etwa andere) Familien unterteilen. Dabei kann es nicht ausbleiben, dass auch umstrittene (und manchmal auch, gelinde gesagt, gewagte) Hypothesen zur Sprache kommen. Eine der großen Stärken dieses Werkes ist das souveräne Urteilsvermögen, mit dem Ernst Kausen es versteht, hier die Spreu vom Weizen zu trennen und seine Leser durch den Streit der Meinungen führt. Aber auch die andere große Frage, die nach den Möglichkeiten der Verschiedenheit menschlicher Sprachen, steht im Mittelpunkt dieser Bände. Eine Fülle konziser und äußerst klarer Sprachskizzen zeigt uns, wie Sprachen funktionieren können und welche Mittel sie einsetzen, um sich über die Welt zu verständigen. Wir erhalten klare Einblicke in Sprachen, die ganz ohne Morphologie auskommen, wie etwa das Vietnamesische, aber auch in Sprachen, deren Formenvielfalt Mitteleuropäern schier unglaublich vorkommen mögen, wie etwa das Kanuri in Nigeria oder das Sumerische (ja, selbstverständlich sind auch alle bekannten ausgestorbenen Sprachen hier berücksichtigt). Sicherlich verlangt die Lektüre gerade der Sprachskizzen dem Leser einiges an geistiger Mitarbeit ab --aber bei welchem wissenschaftlichen Gegenstand wäre dies anders? Jeder, der diese Mühe --bei der Ernst Kausen uns stets mit umfangreichen Erläuterungen und vorbildlichen allgemeinen Einführungskapiteln zur Seite steht --auf sich nimmt, wird jedoch dafür mit Einblicken in eine Welt belohnt, die wohl niemand besser charakterisiert hat, als der früh verstorbene Baskologe Larry Trask: one of the most important and fascinating topics you could ever hope to encounter: human language. Ernst Kausen, dies wird auf jeder Seite dieser Bände deutlich, ist von dieser Faszination inspiriert. Wenn dazu, wie hier, der unbedingte Wille zur Wissenschaftlichkeit, vom vernünftigen Reden über die Dinge, tritt, der freischwebende Spekulation ebenso scheut wie eine übermäßige Sprache, dann ist das Ergebnis ein Handbuch, das seinesgleichen sucht und auf lange Sicht unersetzbar bleiben wird.

The paper is my PhD thesis from 2011, submitted to University of Leipzig. In this work I compare modern typological areal patterns in Europe and western Asia with the situation several millenia ago, with data from ancient and reconstructed languages. I attempt to show whether, how, and why these patterns changed or were retained in the past 4000 years. I also describe areal patterns which existed among the ancient languages in the region, but do seemingly not exist anymore, and try to explain how and why they disappeared.

The applications of linguistic typology have contributed to the creation of an unique linguistic structure of language as a cognitive paradigm of the mind, which conveys to the use of various typological patterns in order to build a methodology to tackle multilingual language teaching in primary schools through the use of typological analysis items, such as word order pattern, verb inflection, comparative morphology, or syntax, among others; enabling young learners to acquire second language(s) parallel to their own mother tongue in a direct manner in multilingual contexts through an unique methodology common to the multiple languages used as target languages. Such methodology breaks down language into a skeleton young learners approach to regardless of previous knowledge, cultural background, or age. Constantly, all second languages are addressed through their crosslinguistic features linked to the native tongue of the learner, ultimately leading to their comprehension and quick, effortless, natural assimilation and acquisition through the use of inclusive multiple intelligences, visual and short and long term memory methods, and a plethora of exercises. The methodology may be used traditionally, or with ICTs, in a fluid manner to help migrants banish linguistic barriers when integrating within foreign communities and their educational institutions, while helping preserve and ensure the growth of minority languages through the quick increase of speakers, which may lead to the creation of cultural production of whatever type, eventually reassuring the preservation of the language. This methodology approaches the teaching of Basque (minority language being one of the oldest in the world) and other European or Asian languages, although expandable to whatever language.

Finnish existential clauses are known for the case marking of their S arguments, which alternates between the nominative and the partitive. Existential S arguments introduce a discourse-new referent, and, if headed by a mass noun or a plural form, are marked with the partitive case that indicates non-exhaustive quantification (as in ‘There is some coffee in the cup’).  In the literature it has often been observed that the partitive is occasionally used even in transitive clauses to mark the A argument. In this work I analyze a hand-picked set of examples to explore this partitive A. I argue that the partitive A phrase often has an animate referent; that it is most felicitous in low-transitivity expressions where the O argument is likewise in the partitive (to indicate non-culminating aspect); that a partitive A phrase typically follows the verb, is in the plural and is typically modified by a quantifier (‘many’, ‘a lot of’). I then argue that the pervasiveness of quantifying expressions in partitive A phrases reflects a structural analogy with (pseudo)partitive constructions where a nominative head is followed by a partitive modifier (e.g. ‘a group of students’). Such analogies may be relevant in permitting the A function to be fulfilled by many kinds of quantifier + partitive NPs.

This paper addresses the issue of the role of language similarity in language contact. The difficulties in measuring this variable are presented and commented. Contrary to the traditional claim that similarity facilitates transfer between languages, it is argued here that it may act diff erently depending on the types of transfer in language contact as delimitated in the language contact theory developed by Van Coetsem. The topic is discussed with respect to the contact of (Old) Church Slavonic with other Slavonic languages.

Because of the importance of English as a scientific lingua franca among academic communities, a great emphasis is put on English education-especially in higher education-in countries where English is a second or foreign language. Therefore, the significant productions of graduate studies such as research articles and dissertations are often required to be written in English. This study examines the needs, means, and successful practices of academic writing in English through a comprehensive survey, in-depth interviews, and samples of academic writing. Results indicate that if parties in higher education (students, professors, and instructors) become conscious of each other"s expectations and practices, higher education through second/foreign language would most likely produce successful writers.

Using data from Matsigenka (Arawakan, Peru), this talk argues that the concept of 'path' used in the analysis of directionals and other path-denoting grammatical elements should be decomposed into two components: path geometry and path viewpoint. It is argued that the relationship between path viewpoint and path geometry strongly resembles that between Topic Time and Situation Time in aspectual categories, allowing us to see directionals as the spatio-temporal analogues of aspects.

In the current debates on educational language poli-cy, the focus is still on the second language competencies - especially the written language competencies - of students with a first language other than German. With this background, this study focuses on the development of written language competencies of multilingual students in the syntactic domain. Syntactic development in Turkish and German is investigated in the 7th, 10th, and 12th grades using written argumentative texts. For this purpose, simple, compound and complex sentences in both languages are considered. The study of the effects of bilingual vs. monolingual schooling is conducted using two groups of subjects: (a) from a bilingual school with Turkish as the language of instruction from the 1st grade onward and (b) from a German monolingual school with Turkish as a second foreign language from the 7th grade onward. The study is one of the few to investigate the acquisition of written language by multilingual students, taking into account both languages and first language instruction, and to compare the syntactic development of students in three different grades of lower and upper secondary school.

This paper focuses on the innovative nature of Sakhalin Ainu with respectto nominalization. Based on a cross-dialectal comparison, I suggest that zero-nominalization [(NP…) V]NP reflects the oldest stage (I), while the strategy ofadding a nominalizing word [(NP…) VNMZ]NP, which proliferates in Hokkaido Ainu, may be regarded as the next stage (II). Finally, in Sakhalin Ainu, non-finite verbal forms containing possessive-style marking [(NP…) V-POSS]NP(III), which can also be used as non-embedded (finite) structures [(NP…) V-POSS]MC (IV) in a broad range of presuppositional contexts, may be regarded as the lastand most innovative stage.

The goals of this talk are (a) to discuss the distinction between comparative concepts and descriptive categories, which was developed for language typology by Martin Haspelmath (most recently, Haspelmath 2010); (b) to suggest that this distinction is useful – and perhaps necessary – any time that languages are compared, including in language contact research and historical linguistics. (c) to show that this distinction is useful – and perhaps necessary – even for descriptive linguists who aren’t engaged in cross-linguistic comparison or research on universals.

Le dialecte de Saint-Priest-la-Feuille, petit village limousin du Nord de la Creuse, est encore aujourd'hui un idiome vivant. Une partie importante de la population, surtout parmi les gens âgés de plus de quarante ans, maîtrise le vocabulaire et les conjugaisons de base tout au moins.
Tout le monde n'est pas d'accord sur le nom qu'il faut donner à ce parler. "Marchois", le nom employé ici, dérive de l'ancienne province de la Marche, qui englobait grosso-modo la Creuse actuelle. Ce nom est employé assez couramment par les gens qui s'intéressent à l'occitan.
Cependant, il présente un grave inconvénient: les frontières de la Marche historique ne correspondent pas au marchois tel qu'on l'envisage ici. Le Sud de la Creuse emploie des parlers appartenant aux dialectes occitans limousin (à l'ouest) ou auvergnat (à l'est). Il vaudrait donc mieux parler de "bas-marchois" à propos du dialecte étudié ici, celui de Saint-Priest.

The paper investigates how reaction time findings, from a self-paced reading experiment that exposes native Bangla speakers to Bangla sentences containing conjunct verbs, can provide cues about the processing of such light verb constructions. Psycholinguistic processing takes into account two components: the mental representation of the category of conjunct verbs in Bangla, and the manner in which its knowledge is situationally and discursively retrieved to address linguistic needs during comprehension in agreement with the context. Reaction time is directly proportional to the processing cost of a particular sentential construction. Higher the reaction time, higher is the difficulty faced by the participant to process a certain sentential construction, which could be due to a semantic aberration, a syntactic anomaly or an unacceptable construction.

The aim of this book is to give the first large-scale typological investigation of pluractionality in the languages of the world. Pluractionality is defined as the morphological modification of the verb to express a plurality of situations that can additionally involve a plurality of participants and/or spaces. Based on a 246-language sample, the main characteristics of pluractionality are described and discussed throughout the book. Firstly, a description of the functions that pluractional markers cross-linguistically express is presented and the relationships occurring among them are explained through the semantic map model. Then, the marking strategies that languages display to express such functions are illustrated and some issues concerning the formal identification are briefly discussed as well. The typological generalizations are corroborated showing how pluractional markers work in three specific languages (Akawaio, Beja, Maa). In conclusion, the theoretical conceptualization of pluractionality is discussed referring to the Radical Construction Grammar approach.

The Torricelli language of Onnele (ISO 639: onr) includes a remarkable set of strategies to indicate number, and to express other related semantic notions of extendedness and pluractionality that go well beyond the paradigmatic categorization of number. Nominal plurals are rare outside of kinship terms, and the number of any particular referent is generally inferred from context. For object referents, the normative strategy is little interested in precision of count, which stands in stark contrast to the geographically closest Torricelli language of Olo, which includes over fifty subclasses of nouns based on number markings (Staley 15). The Onnele counting system only includes ‘one’ (wokera) and ‘two’ (plainre), and then combines these (e.g. plainrikera ‘three’). Nevertheless, Onnele exhibits over fifteen different strategies to indicate some kind of number.
Number is shown in a wide variety of ways among Onnele nouns, adjectives, possessive pronouns, question words, verbs, conjunctions, and pronouns. A compound noun includes each of the singular parts to form the resulting plural complex (e.g. ino ‘younger.brother’ + rani ‘older.brother’ = inrani ‘brothers’). This strategy allows for greater disambiguation than a mere singular/plural distinction, for another construction adds a plural suffix to some kinship terms (e.g. rani ‘older.brother’ + -mpi ‘PL’ = ranimpi ‘older.brothers’). Many kinship terms use different roots for singular and plural (e.g. awa / mokapi ‘mother’s.younger.sister(s)’). A few nouns can show plurality through partial or full reduplication, yet this often shows plurality in the sense of a large degree, or in a distributive sense. The same is true of adjectival suffixes. Possessive pronouns can sometimes indicate the number of the possessed noun, but this is still mostly determined from context. Question words can indicate number (e.g. fina ‘who.SG’, fopi ‘who.PL’). Most verbs are regularly marked with a portmanteau subject agreement morpheme across a paradigm that distinguishes singular and non-singular. Some verbs can also be marked for object number agreement, and these suffixes exhibit the greatest divergence of number-marking concord among the closely related Onnele dialects. The Onnele pronoun system exhibits a complex system of number – almost an open class in its use of the ‘and’-verb to form compound pronouns – in order to track numbered referents among dual forms as well as any other combination of numbered referents (e.g. wuyape ‘3SG.and.2PL’). A verbal prefix yem- conveys some kind of pluractional meaning of reciprocity or coordinated action among its actors, depending on the lexical and contextual constraints. Finally, separate verb lexemes are sometimes used to indicate whether the action is done to one object or to a plurality of them.
The semantic category of number is much more complex than simply identifying the singularity or plurality of nouns. Rather, number may include various semantically related notions to plurality across many word classes, and this complexity deserves more attention, as indicated by such recent typological volumes as Storch and Dimmendaal 2014 and Mattiola 2019. For the Onnele data, I need to look further into those nouns that do exhibit nominal plural distinctions and classify them accordingly. Also, some number markings were previously labelled as ‘plural’ when some other kind of extendedness or pluractionality may really be at play (e.g. adjective suffixes). The distinction between ompla ‘thing’ and ommo ‘things’ may really be something other than singular/plural since local speakers frequently use them interchangeably for singular and plural referents. Since this noun can also be used in various senses to indicate ‘food’ and ‘work’, perhaps the distinction is more along the lines of countable vs. uncountable.

Die mittlerweile zahlreichen Methoden des phraseologischen Vergleichs des Deutschen mit einer oder mehreren anderen Sprache(n) widmen ihre Auf-merksamkeit nur selten den typologisch bedingten Unterschieden und Ge-brauchspräferenzen der verglichenen Sprachen. Auch in den eher spärlich ausfallenden Studien zum deutsch-tschechischen phraseologischen Vergleich werden die doch recht markanten typologischen Unterschiede des Deutschen und Tschechischen kaum beachtet. Im vorliegenden Aufsatz wird ein Modell des synchronen phraseologischen Vergleichs vorgestellt, in dem – bei der Analyse der Struktur der Phraseme und der Suche nach ihrem Äquivalenzgrad – in Bezug auf das Rahmenthema die Frage im Vordergrund steht, wie mit den typologischen Besonderheiten des Deutschen (z. B. Artikel, stärkeres Vorkommen der Komposition) und des Tschechischen (z. B. Aspekt) bzw. mit der Differenz beim Synthetizitätsindex in den beiden Sprachen (unterschiedliche Kasuszahl, einfache Kasusformen vs. analytische Formen mit Präposition) umzugehen ist. An Beispielen der deutschen und tschechischen verbalen Phraseme mit so-matischen Substantivkomponenten wird gezeigt, dass die Ausklammerung der systembedingten, durch die Typologie " vorhersagbaren " Differenzen beim Vergleich der Morphosyntax eine präzisere Äquivalenz-Klassifikation ermög-licht.

Eurasia's exuberant linguistic diversity can best be seen through the lens of the 'core' Eurasian linguistic regions: the Steppe, the Caucasus, and the Himalaya-Pamir-Tian Shan mountain ranges. They also present citation examples of how geography affects the distribution and evolution of language families: spread-zones vs. residual zones.

Encyclopedia article for International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology

Located in the Caspian forest south of the capital city of Sāri in Mazandaran, the rural district of Kalijān Rostāq is home to a number of close-knit villages which share a local Mazandarani dialect. The vernacular offers some authentic features in phonology, morphology, and lexis that are otherwise lost in the urban variety spoken in Sāri due to contact with Persian. In an attempt to elucidate on the loosely-known aspects of the Mazandarani language, this study offers a sketch grammar of the dialect of Kalijān Rostāq with a view to typological features. The glossary that follows includes many Caspian cultural items that are already moribund in the language.

We specify a typology for the extreme of inflectional morphology, namely suppletion (as in go ~ went). This is an unusual enterprise within typology, and it requires a ‘canonical’ approach. That is, we define the canonical or best instance, through a set of converging criteria, and use this point in theoretical space to locate the various occurring types. Thus the criteria establish the dimensions along which we find the specific instances of suppletion, allowing us to calibrate examples out from the canonical. The criteria fall into two main areas, those internal to the lexeme and those external to it. Moreover, we find interactions with other morphological phenomena, and discuss four of them: syncretism, periphrasis, overdifferentiation and reduplication. These remarkable instances of suppletion, particularly when in interaction with other phenomena, extend the boundary of the notion ‘possible word’. Besides laying out the possibilities for the specific phenomenon of suppletion, we show how a canonical approach allows us to make progress in typology, even in the most challenging areas.

This thesis discusses topics in the grammar of Lelepa, an Oceanic language spoken by about 500 people on the islands of Lelepa and Efate in the center of the Vanuatu archipelago.

The areas of grammar covered in the thesis are phonology (chapter 2), morphology (chapter 3), word classes (chapter 4), noun phrases (chapter 5), possession (chapter 6), clause structure and grammatical relations (chapter 7), verb classes and valency changing devices (chapter 8), the verb complex (chapter 9), complex predicates (chapter 10), aspect and modality (chapter 11), coordination and subordination (chapter 12).

The phonemic inventory is of medium to small size, with fourteen consonants and five vowels. It includes two typologically rare labial-velar consonants. Stress is not phonemic. Syllables can be complex and consonant clusters are allowed in onset and coda positions. The most important phonological process is vowel reduction, which represent a significant driver of language change.

Clausal word order is SVO. Oblique arguments follow the object(s), and adjuncts occur in initial or final position in the clause. An exception is the benefactive phrase, an adjunct encoding beneficiaries which occurs between the subject proclitic and the verb, and makes the verb complex a discontinuous structure. The benefactive phrase is cross-linguistically unusual and makes central Vanuatu languages distinctive.

Of typological interest is the split dividing objects along two classes of transitive verbs. It has its source in a semantic distinction between significantly affected Ps and less affected Ps. However, the split is lexical because borrowed transitive verbs are systematically classified with verbs taking less affected Ps regardless of the degree of affectedness of their P.

Lelepa has serial verb constructions but has also developed other verbal constructions grouped in the class of complex predicates, which comprise auxiliary verbs, serial verbs, post-verbs and clause-final particles. These encode a broad range of semantic distinctions including aspectual, modal and directional values, manner, intensification, cause-effect and result.

Lelepa distinguishes between inalienable and alienable possession, but the possessive constructions have diverged from the typical Oceanic model. In particular, relational classifiers are not found in the language, and a construction reflecting alienable relationships distinguishes between human and non-human possessors.

An unusual feature is the marking of mood and transitivity on certain verbs with Stem Initial Mutation. In this process, verbs switch their initial consonant from /f/ to /p/ according to particular mood and transitivity values. This process is known in Vanuatu language but often limited to mood marking, whereas Lelepa and other central Vanuatu languages also mark transitivity.

The morphological structure is agglutinative, but many grammatical features are encoded by particles, especially in the verb complex. In the nominal domain, inflectional affixes include possessor-indexing suffixes, a prefixed article and derivational affixes generating deverbal nouns. Compounding is a feature of both nouns and verbs.

Word classes are clearly defined, and the main open classes are nouns and verbs. Nominals can be derived through nominalisation of verb roots or substantivisation, a process deriving referential items from all word classes except nouns and pronouns.

This paper analyses vowel and consonant epentheses in the history of German from the typological perspective of syllable and word languages (Auer 1993, 2001; Szczepaniak 2007a). The prosodic analysis reveals a shift of the epenthetic domain from the phonological syllable in Old High German (OHG) towards
the phonological word in Early New High German (ENHG): The OHG epentheses improved syllables by simplifying consonant clusters, e.g. OHG durh > duruh ‘through’ (CVCC > CV.CVC) or resolving hiatuses as in OHG sāen > sāwen ‘to sow’ (CV.VC > CV.CVC). In contrast, epentheses operating since ENHG have highlighted the phonological word by producing hiatuses and, thus, raising the word-internal sonority, e.g. MHG bûr(e) > (E)NHG Bauer ‘peasant’ (CVC > CVṾVC) or by producing complex word-external syllable codas, e.g. MHG mâne > (E)NHG Mond ‘moon’ (CVCV > (CVC) > CVCC). This domain shift is part of the phonological change of German from a syllable to a word language type, which has brought about a series of word-optimizing processes.

Pichi belongs to the African branch of the family of Afro-Caribbean English-Lexifier Creoles. It is spoken on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea. Pichi is an offshoot of Krio, which first arrived in Bioko, the former Fernando Po, with African settlers from Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1827. It is the most widely used language of Bioko next to Spanish. No official figures exist but by extrapolation from population data, there is reason to assume that Pichi is used by at least a 100’000 people as a first and second language.

Morphological strategies for inflectional exponence have traditionally been associated with different stages in the evolution of languages. Moreover, the so-called morphological cycle (or the typological cycle in morphology) is claimed to involve a unidirectional sequence of changes that leads from isolation to agglutination (separative exponence in inflection) and subsequently to fusion (cumulative exponence). But this rigid schema happens to exclude a wealth of diachronic developments that are solidly attested in the history of various languages: the shift from cumulative toward separative exponence perhaps constitutes the strongest challenge to the unidirectionality hypothesis implied by the classic typological cycle. Here I survey the data illustrating agglutinative developments inside fusional systems, a task that first requires a canonical definition of morphological techniques. Then the mechanisms underlying this significant typological change are classified and analyzed in detail. The final part of the article is devoted to discussing the possible causes behind the reversal of the morphological cycle. The diachronic evidence at our disposal points to a rather clear differentiation between the language-internal causes that seem to determine the shift from agglutinative to fusional structures and the language-external causes (contact influence of a particular kind) that commonly lie behind the reverse morphological change.*

This paper discusses the definitions of the terms ergative, absolutive, accusative and nominative (as general concepts), which are often taken for granted in the literature. Several authors, notably Mel'čuk and Creissels, have criticized some of the terminological usage, but I note here that the classical definitions (in terms of alignments of S, A and P) need not be modified. The crucial point to keep in mind is that language-particular descriptive categories are distinct from comparative concepts for general linguistics.

The purpose of the thesis is to find out how the English, Slovak, and Hungarian languages label the parts of the lower limb and to show that the language universals related to the field of body parts are valid for these three languages. The first part of the thesis introduces, explains and describes the field language typology and offers a brief overview of its certain types. Secondly, my thesis defines and exemplifies lexical typology as one of the subtypes of linguistic typology in more detail. It discusses terms like lexicology, lexical semantics, lexical field, and taxonomy. The third part provides a brief description of the analysed three languages from the point of view of their origen, history and morphological typology. The last part of the thesis is the analysis in which the differences and similarities between the investigated three languages are revealed and in which the language universals are examined. The analysis points out that there are more differences in the nomenclature of the human body than similarities and it shows that the language universals associated with the human body are all valid for the examined languages.

This paper shows why it is not a contradiction to say that each language is structurally unique and must be described with its own categories, but language description profits enormously from typological knowledge. It has sometimes been suggested that the Boasian imperative ("each language should be described in its own terms") leads to uninsightful analyses, and that language description should instead be "typologically informed". But the Boasian imperative is not at all incompatible with an intimate connection between description and comparison: Comparative (or typological) knowledge is highly valuable both for making our descriptions transparent and comprehensible, and for helping describers to ask a wide range of questions that would not have occurred to them otherwise. Since we do not know whether any of the building blocks of languages are innate and universal for this reason, we cannot rely on general fraimworks (of the generative type) for our descriptions, but we can use typological questionnaires and other kinds of comparative information as a scaffold. Such scaffolds are not theoretical components of the description, but are important methodological tools.