keeletüpoloogia

Keeletüpoloogia, also known as linguistic typology, is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages based on their structural and functional properties. Rather than focusing on the historical development or genetic relationships between languages, typologists examine how languages differ and what common patterns exist across them. The central aim is to identify universal features of human language and to understand the range of variation that languages exhibit.

Typological research often involves comparing a wide range of languages from diverse families and geographical areas. Researchers look at various linguistic levels, including phonology (sound systems), morphology (word structure), syntax (sentence structure), and semantics (meaning). For example, a typologist might investigate word order in sentences, comparing languages that place the verb before the subject (VSO) with those that place it after (SVO) or in other positions. They also study features like the presence or absence of grammatical gender, the way questions are formed, or the marking of grammatical relations.

Key concepts in linguistic typology include linguistic universals, which are features or properties that are claimed to hold for all languages, and linguistic variation, which refers to the observable differences between languages. Typologists seek to explain these variations and universals, often by proposing functional or cognitive constraints that shape language structure. The field has developed various classification systems, such as the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS), which provides data on a wide array of typological features for hundreds of languages, allowing for empirical testing of typological hypotheses.