Linguistic typology Linguistic typology The Centum-Satem division is an isogloss of the Indo-European language family, discussing different treatments of the three dorsal consonant rows reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European, * (labiovelars), * (velars), and * ; (palatovelars). The terms come from the words for the number "one hundred" in representative languages of each group (Latin centum and Avestan ). ...more on Wikipedia about "Centum-Satem isogloss"
A dechticaetiative language is a language in which the indirect objects of ditransitive verbs are treated like the direct objects of monotransitive verbs. ...more on Wikipedia about "Dechticaetiative language"
A dependent-marking language is one where the grammatical marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on the dependents or modifiers, rather than the heads or nuclei, of the phrase in question. In a noun phrase, the head is the main noun and the dependents are the article, the adjectives, the possessives, etc. In a verb phrase the head is the verb and the dependents are its arguments (subject, object, etc.). ...more on Wikipedia about "Dependent-marking language"
East Asian languages or the East Asian sprachbund describe two notional groupings of languages in East and Southeast Asia, either (1) languages which have been greatly influenced by Classical Chinese, or the CJKV Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese) area or (2) a larger grouping including the CJKV area as well as several language groups of Southeast Asia including other Sino-Tibetan languages, Tai-Kadai, and Austronesian languages. ...more on Wikipedia about "East Asian languages"
A head-marking language is one where the grammatical marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on the heads (or nuclei) of the phrase in question, rather than the modifiers or dependents. ...more on Wikipedia about "Head-marking language"
Incorporation is a phenomenon by which a word, usually a verb, forms a kind of compound with, for instance, its direct object or adverbial modifier, while retaining its original syntactic function. ...more on Wikipedia about "Incorporation (linguistics)"
A linguistic universal is a statement that is true for all natural languages. For example, All languages have nouns and verbs. or All spoken languages have consonants and vowels (but not sign languages, to which phonological universals have no relevance). Research in this area of linguistics is closely tied to linguistic typology, and intends to reveal information about how the human brain processes language. The field was largely pioneered by the linguist Joseph Greenberg, who from a set of some thirty languages derived a set of basic universals, mostly dealing with syntax. ...more on Wikipedia about "Linguistic universal"
A monosyllabic language is a language in which words are predominantly monosyllabic. In a monosyllabic language, it is rarely the case that all words are monosyllabic; it is normally just the case that most words are. Monosyllabic languages are often tonal languages; due to the use of tones, the number of available monosyllables is significantly more than in non-tonal languages, making shorter words more practical. The Chinese language, however, is not monosyllabic; see Chinese language#Morphology for discussion. ...more on Wikipedia about "Monosyllabic language"
A null subject language, in linguistic typology, is a language whose grammar permits the omission of an explicit subject. This phenomenon is similar, but not identical, to that of pro-drop languages, which may omit pronouns, including subject pronouns. ...more on Wikipedia about "Null subject language"
Oligosynthetic (from the Greek ὀλίγος, meaning "few, little") is a hypothetical designation for a language using an extremely small array of morphemes, perhaps numbering only in the hundreds, which combine synthetically to form statements. The chief difference between a polysynthetic and an oligosynthetic language is the total number of morphemes, which for the latter would be much smaller. Such a language would possess, in a manner of speaking, an " oligarchy" of morphemes. Speech would depend heavily on the creation of lengthy compound words, to an extent far exceeding that of regular synthetic languages. ...more on Wikipedia about "Oligosynthetic language"
A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language where pronouns can be deleted when pragmatically inferable. ...more on Wikipedia about "Pro-drop language"
A topic-prominent language is one that organizes its syntax so that sentences have a topic-comment (or theme-rheme) structure, where the topic is the thing being talked about (predicated) and the comment is what is said about the topic. This structure is independent of the syntactic ordering of subject, verb and object, and may be marked by word order (typically mentioning the topic first thing in the sentence, and then the comment), or by explicit morphology (as in Japanese with the clitic particle wa). ...more on Wikipedia about "Topic-prominent language"
The UCLA Phonological Segment Inventory Database (or UPSID) is a statistical survey of the phoneme inventories in 451 of the world's languages. The datebase was created by American phonetician Ian Maddieson for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1984 and updated several times. ...more on Wikipedia about "UCLA Phonological Segment Inventory Database"
Verb-second (V2) word order, in syntax, is the effect that in some languages the second constituent of declarative main clauses is always a verb, while this is not necessarily the case in other types of clauses. ...more on Wikipedia about "V2 word order" http://www.shortopedia.com moments.
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