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Typological Hierarchies in Synchrony and Diachrony
Edited by Sonia Cristofaro and Fernando Zúñiga
[Typological Studies in Language 121] 2018
► pp. 111–128

Chapter 3
Deconstructing teleology

The place of synchronic usage patterns among processes of diachronic development

| University of California, Santa Barbara

A central issue in typology is the role of implicational hierarchies in shaping individual languages. One view is that the hierarchies guide language change, or at least constrain it: “Since a hierarchy constrains what is a possible language, it is also a constraint on language change, because languages move from one possible state to another” (Corbett 2011). Other approaches take a different perspective: “Hierarchies simply capture the outputs of independent diachronic processes” (Cristofaro & Zúñiga this volume). Here the relationship between typology and diachrony is examined with respect to the most frequently-cited hierarchies, the cluster of Referential/Topicality/Animacy/Empathy hierarchies. While such hierarchies might appear to drive diachronic development in some single-step changes, multi-step developments are a different matter.

Article outline
  • 1.The hierarchies
  • 2.Number
    • 2.1Number developments in Iroquoian
    • 2.2Stimulus
  • 3.Head marking
  • 4.Alignment splits
    • 4.1 Reanalysis of instruments
    • 4.2Reanalysis of passives
  • 5.Hierarchies as constraints on change?
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Appendix
  • References
Published online: 26 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.121.03mit
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