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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