Typology and theory of the Word
Final Report Abstract
This project surveyed the structure of phonological word domains in more than 70 languages, including in-depth case studies of several Sino-Tibetan and Austro-Asiatic languages. The main discovery of the project is that most languages violate the traditional expectation that.languages have exactly one phonological domain larger than the foot and smaller than the phrase, i.e. exactly one type of 'phonological word'. Most languages have more than one-such domain; some languages (like Vietnamese) lack evidence for any such domain. Our survey work led to the development of a typological database (available for download at www.uni-leipzig.de/~autotyp). The attested diversity in the database is substantial, suggesting that the actual.diversity beyond our sample is even larger. Because of this, the project did not spend energy on developing a new theory constraining the set of possible language types but instead focused on (a) the exploration of probabilistic trends in an areally and genealogically stratified sample of 40 Sino-Tibetan, Indo-European and Austro-Asiatic languages and (b) detailed case studies of typologically rare patterns. The quantitative analyses suggest that structures in phonological word domains are remarkably stable within families over time and do not spread easily between languages. We also find evidence that universally, word domains tend to be largerfor stress patterns than for any other pattern (including tone) and a weak but statistically non-significant trend for phonological patterns to converge on unified phonological word domains to a larger extent in what are traditionally called 'stress-timed' than in 'syllable-timed' languages. The case studies reveal typologically unusual languages with noncohering suffixes (instead of prefixes: Kyirong Tibetan), languages with prefixes that can freely attach to variable phonological word edges (Chintang), languages with a multitude of nonisomorphic phonological word domains (Limbu), and languages with no evidence for the existence of phonological words (Vietnamese).
Publications
- 2003. Prosodic tautomorphemicity in Sino-Tibetan. In: Bradley, D., R. J. LaPolla, B. Michailovsky, & G. Thurgood (eds.) Variation in Sino-Tibetan and South East Asian languages, 89 - 99. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics
Bickel, B.
- 2005. Inflectional synthesis of the verb. In: Haspelmath, M., M. S. Dryer, D. Gil, & B. Comrie (eds.) The world atlas of language structures, 94 - 97. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Bickel, B. & J. Nichols
- 2006. Morphologization in Turkish: implications for phonology in grammaticalization. In: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Turkish Linguistics
Schiering, R.
- 2007. Free prefix ordering in Chintang. Language 83, 43 - 73
Bickel, B., G. Banjade, M. Gaenszle, E. Lieven, N. Paudyal, I. P. Rai, M. Rai, N. K. Rai, & S. Stoll
- 2007. Inflectional morphology. In: Shopen, T. (ed.) Language typology and syntactic description, 169 - 240. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Revised second edition)
Bickel, B. & J. Nichols
- 2007. Prosodic and Grammatical Domains in Limbu. Himalayan Linguistics Journal 8, 1 - 34
Hildebrandt, K.
- 2007. The phonological basis of linguistic rhythm: cross-linguistic data and siachronic Interpretation. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 60, 337-359
Schiering, R.
- 2008. Introduction: theory and typology of the word. Linguistics 46, 183 - 192
Hall, T. A., K. Hildebrandt, & B. Bickel
- 2008. Phonological and morphological domains in Kyirong Tibetan. Linguistics 46, 215-248
Hall, T. A. & K. Hildebrandt
- 2009. Review of Szczepaniak, Renata (2007). Der phonologisch-typologische Wandel des Deutschen von einer Silben- zu einer Wortsprache. Linguistic Typology 13, 463-471
Schiering, R.
- 2009. Stress-timed = word-based? Testing a hypothesis in Prosodic Typology
Schiering, R., B. Bickel, & K. Hildebrandt
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1524/stuf.2012.0010) - 2009. The distribution of phonological word domains: a probabilistic typology. In: Grijzenhout, J. & B. Kabak (eds.) Phonological domains: universals and deviations., 47-75. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter
Bickel, B., K. Hildebrandt, & R. Schiering
- The prosodic word is not universal, but emergent. Journal of Linguistics
Schiering, R., B. Bickel, & K. Hildebrandt
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226710000216)
