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Linguistic Categories, Language Description and Linguistic Typology
Edited by Luca Alfieri, Giorgio Francesco Arcodia and Paolo Ramat
[Typological Studies in Language 132] 2021
► pp. 101–136

Typology of functional domains

| University of Colorado

The aim of this study is to advocate one of the aims of linguistic typology, viz. the discovery of how languages are similar or different with respect to the functions they encode and consequently for the development of a typology based solely on the functions encoded in the grammatical systems of individual languages. Such a typology has the advantage of not requiring or depending on aprioristic definitions. Such a typology also has the following additional advantages: it can serve as a tool in explaining the forms of utterances in individual languages and in explaining why certain languages have functions that other languages do not.

Article outline
  • 1.Aims of typology
  • 2.Approaches to the study of functional categories
  • 3.Problems with conceptual frameworks (comparative concepts)
  • 4.Current approaches to the discovery of functions
  • 5.Theoretical foundations for a non-aprioristic description of functions
  • 6.Discovery of the function of a linguistic form
    • 6.1The prerequisites for the discovery of functions
    • 6.2Two types of functions in the present approach
      • 6.2.1Relationship between functions as a main discovery tool
  • 7.The basic questions in the cross-linguistic study of functions
  • 8.Proposed object of typology of functions
  • 9.Point of view
    • 9.1Point of view of the subject as a marked category
    • 9.2Point of view of the subject as unmarked category
    • 9.3Goal orientation
    • 9.4Point of view of the subject and goal orientation in Hdi
  • 10.Locative predication
  • 11.Benefactive, malefactive, and the indirect object
    • 11.1Benefactive function
    • 11.2Indirectly affected argument
    • 11.3Conclusions
  • 12.Advantages of comparing functions encoded in the grammatical systems
  • 13.What the typology of functional functions will look like
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 9 July 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.132.04fra
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Lieb, Hans-Heinrich
2021. Theories of language, language comparison, and grammatical description. In Linguistic Categories, Language Description and Linguistic Typology [Typological Studies in Language, 132], ► pp. 137 ff. DOI logo

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