Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2025

Is there a typological profile of isolates?

Résumé

Across the linguistic literature, one occasionally encounters claims of typological differences between isolates and non-isolates, but these are often vague, and tend to use isolates as proxies for small community size, huntergatherer societies, and/or socially/geographically isolated languages. We compared the distribution of 89 phonological and morphosyntactic typological features between isolates and non-isolates using a worldwide sample of 215 languages (68 isolates vs. 147 non-isolates), in which we were unable to find a statistically significant distinction. We discuss the relevance of our results for these claims, for the suggested proxy relationships between isolates and other factors, and suggest possible avenues for future research.

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halshs-04906672 , version 1 (13-05-2025)

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Marine Vuillermet, David Inman, Natalia Chousou-Polydouri, Kellen Parker van Dam, Shelece Easterday, et al.. Is there a typological profile of isolates?. Iker Salaberri ; Dorota Krajewska; Ekaitz Santazilia; Eneko Zuloaga. Investigating Language Isolates: Typological and diachronic perspectives, John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp.22 - 47, 2025, Typological Studies in Language, 9789027218995. ⟨10.1075/tsl.135.01vui⟩. ⟨halshs-04906672⟩
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