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1/20

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Language

ypology

and

Language

Universals

Sprachtypologiend

sprachliche

niversalien

La

typologie

es

angues

t

les

universaux

inguistiques

An InternationalHandbook

Ein nternationales

andbuch

Manuel

nternational

Editedby I

Herausgegeben

on /

Edite

par

Martin Haspelmath

Ekkehard

Konig

Wulf Oesterreicher

Wolfgang

Raible

Volume

2,1

2. Halbband

Tome2

Walter de Gruvter

'

Berlin

'

New York

2001


2/20

1492

XIV. Typological haracterization f language amiliesand linguisticareas

107.TheEuropeaninguistic rea:Standard verage uropean

l i

r l l t t '

i.

r i l i

l l l l

' i t t

I'

r,

I

l . r

;

I

{ i

f , ,

1

i i

t ; ' , r ,

t i l ; I r

L lntroduction

2. The major

SAE features

3.

Some urther ikely SAE features

4.

Degrees

f membershipn SAE

5.

How did SAE come nto

being?

6. Abbreviations

of language ames

7. References

1. Introduction

This article

summarizessome of the main

piecesof evidence or a linguistic area (or

Sprachbund)

n Europe that

comprises he

Romance,

Germanic and Balto-Slavic lan-

guages,

he Balkan anguages. nd more mar-

ginally

also the westernmostFinno-Ugrian

languages

these

will

be called coreEuropean

languages

n this

article).

This linguistic

area

is

sometimes alled

Standard AverageEuro-

pean (abbreviated

SAE), following Whorf

(1941)

[956:

138].The existence f this lin-

guistic

area is

a

relatively

new insight

(cf.

Bechertet

al.

1990,

Bernini & Ramat 1996,

Haspelmath1998, an

der Auwera 1998,Ko-

nig & Haspelmath

999).

While the close syntacticparallelsamong

the Balkan

languageshave struck linguists

since the l9th century

and the existenceof

a Balkan

Sprachbundhas been universally

accepted,

he European linguistic area has

long been

overlooked.This may at first ap-

pear

surprising,because he members

of the

Sprachbund re among

the best studied an-

guages

of the

world.

However, t is easy to

understandwhy

linguists have been

slow to

appreciate

he significance f the

similarities

among the core

European languages:Since

most comparative

inguists know these an-

guages

articularly

well,

they have ended o

see non-European anguagesas special and

unusual,

and the similarities arnong the

European

languageshave not seemed

sur-

prising.

Thus, t was

only toward the end of

the

20th century, as more and more

had be-

come known

about the

grammaticalproper-

ties of the

languages f the rest of the world,

that linguists

realizedhow

peculiar

the core

European anguages

re

in

some

ways when

seen n the

world-wide

context. From this

perspective.

tandardAverageEuropeanmay

even appearas an

"exotic

language"

Dahl

1990).

A linguistic

area can be recognizedwhen

a numberof geographically ontiguous an-

guages

harestructural eatureswhich cannot

be due to retention from a common

proto-

language

and

which

give

these anguages

profile

that makes hem stand out among he

surrounding anguages. here

s thus no min-

imum number of languages hat a

linguistic

area comprises

Qtace

Stolz

2001a). n

prin-

ciple,

there could

be

a linguistic area con-

sisting of

just

two

languages

though

this

would be rather uninteresting), and there

are also

very

large

continent-sized)

inguistic

areas (Dryer 1989a).Likewise, there is no

minimum number of structural

eatures hat

the languagesmust share n order to

qualify

as a Sprachbund.For

instance, Jakobson

(1931)

establishes is

"Eurasian

linguistic

area" on

the basis

of

just

two

phonological

features,but of course an area that shares

more features s more interesting.As will be

shown below, Standard Average European

languages

hareover

a dozen highly charac-

teristic eatures, o we are dealingwith a very

interesting

Sprachbund.

A linguistic

area

is

particularly

striking

when

it comprises anguages rom

genealog-

ically unrelated languages like the South

Asian linguistic area

(*

fut. 109), or

the

Mesoamerican inguistic area

(+

Art. ll0)),

but this is not a necessary eature of

a

Sprachbund.

The Balkan languagesare all

Indo-European,

but they are

from different

families

within

Indo-European

(Romance,

Slavic.

Greek.

Albanian). and not all

lan-

guages

f these

amiliesbelong o the Baikan

linguistic area, so nobody

questions

he va-

lidity of the Balkan Sprachbund

-

tut. 108).

In the

case of SAE,

three entire branches

of

Indo-European

Romance,

Germanic

and

Balto-Slavic)

belong

to the linguistic area.

However, here too it is clear that we are

not

dealing

with a

genealogicalgrouping,

because obody ever

proposed

a branch

of

Indo-European that consists of

precisely

these hree families. On the contrary,

Indo-

Europeanists ypically assumea

particularly

close

genealogical

elationshipbetween taiic

and Celtic

(and

sometimes

even

an Italo-

Celtic

protolanguage),

ut Romance

the

sole

descendant

f

ltalic) is inside

SAE,

while

the

Celtic

anguages o not belong o SAE.

And

sinceso much is known about the

grammat-

ical

properties

that Proto-lndo-European

must have

possessed,

t is fairly easy o

test

whether an SAE feature is an Indo-Euro-


3/20

The European

inguistic

area:

Standard

Average

European

r not.

As was

shown

n

Haspelmath

most

of

the

characteristic

SAE

fea-

(also

called

Europeanisms

ere)

are

not

ut

later

common

inno_

Thus, what needs o be shown in order to ..

that

a structural

feature

is

a

\

s

that

the

great

majority

of

core

European

languages ossesses

t;

that

the

geographically

adjacent

lan_

guages

ack

it

(i.

e.

Celtic

in

the

west,

Turkic,

eastern

Uralic,

Abkhaz-Adygh-

ean

and

Nakh-Daghestanian

n

the

eist,

and

perhaps

Afro-Asiatic

in

the

south):

that

the

eastern

Indo-European

lan-

guages

ack

it

(Armenian,

Iranian.

In_

dic);

and

that this feature is not found in the ma-

jority

of the

world's

anguages.

ilarly

the

last

point

is

not

easy

o

de-

for

many

features

because

here

still

far

too

few

representative

world-wide

of

grammatical

structures,

so to

the

hat

our

knowledge

about

the

world's

s

incomplete

and

biased.

we

can-

be

sure

about

the

European

linguistic

In

this

article,

I

will

cite

whatevlr

in_

is

available,

and

sometimes

will

to

resort

to

impressionistic

observa-

The

designation

"core

European

lan_

for members of,SAE

is

diliberatelv

because

he

European

linguistic

area

not

have

sharp

boundariei.

It

seems

o identify

a

nucleus

consistins

of

West

Germanic

languages

i.g.

G_erman)

and

Gallo-Romance

(e.

g.

Occitan,

northern

Italo-Romancej.

this

set

of

languages,

an

der

Auwera

roposes

he

name

Charlemagne

)und.

Of

the

other

languages,

th6se

are

geographically

furtier

from

this

also

seem

o share

significantly

fewer

features,

i.

e.

Ibero-Romance.

insular

Icelandic

and

Faroese),

EastRussian,

Ukrainian,

Belorussian)

nd

Even

English,

a West

Germanic

an_

s

clearly

not within

the

nucleus.

Of

non-IndolEuropean

anguages

of

Europe,

Uralic

languages i.

e.

Hungarian

Balto-Finnic)

are

at

least

marginal-mem_

ofStandard

Average

Europea-n;

hey

are

many

ways

strikingly

different

from

east_

Uralic.

Maltese

also

exhibits

a number

of

not

shared

by

other

Arabic

varieties,

but

Basque

seems

o

show very

few

of

them.

Somewhat

urther

to

the

east.

Geor-

gian

n

the

southern

Caucasus

and

perhaps

the

other

Kartvelian

languages)

shares

a

surprising

number

of

features

with

the

core

European languages.These impressionistic

statements

should

eventually

be

quantified.

but

since

t is

not

clear

how

much

weisht

should

be attached

o each

eature.

his

s

ot

straightforward.

All

ofthe

features

iscussed

elow

are svn-

tactic.

or

concern

the

existence

of

certiin

morphosyntactic

categories.

am

not

aware

of any

phonological

properties

characteristic

of the

core

European

anguages

cf.

Jakob-

son

l93l:

182;

do

six

por

ne

udalos'najt i

ni

odnogo

obsdeevropejskogo

..

poloZitel'nogo

fonologideskogo

riznaka

[so

far

not

a sin[le

Europe-wide

positive

phonological

eature

iasbeen foundl").

Perhaps

phonologists

have

not looked

hard

enough,

but

at

least

one

ma-

jor

recent

study

of word prosody

in

Euro-

pean

anguages

as

not found

any phonolog-

ical

evidence

or

Standard

Average-Europein

(van

der

Hulst

et

al.

1999,

especially

Maps

I

-4)

(but

cf.

Pisani

1969).

A

few

eeneralizi-

tions

are

discussed

y

Ternes

199-3),

ut

he

finds

that

in

most

respects

European

lan-

guages

are

unremarkable

rom

a world-wide

perspective.

erhaps

he

only

features

wortlr

mentioning

are the

relatively

arge

vowel

in-

ventories

no

3-vowel

or 4-vowel

nventories)

and

the

relatively

ommou consonant lus-

ters

(no

restriction

o

CV

syllables).

n these

respects,

uropean

anguages

re not

average.

Dut

they

are

by

no

means

extreme

either.

2.

The

major

Standard

Average

European

features

In this

section

will

discuss

a

dozen

sram-

matical

features

hat

are

characteristic

f

the

core

European

anguages

nd

that

together

define

the

SAE

Sprachbund.

n

each

case

I

will

briefly

dehne

the feature

and

sive a few

examples

rom

SAE

languages.

hin

a name

map, which indicates he approximate oca-

tion

of languages

y

the

arrangement

f

(ab-

breviated)

anguage

names,

shows

he

distri-

bution

of

the various

feature

values

within

Europe.

n

each

case

t

can

be

observed

hat

the

nuclear

SAE

languages

are within

the

SAE

isogloss,

and

that

the

marsinal

lan-

guages

end

to

be

outside

the

isoiloss

to a

greater

or lesser

xtent.

part

of

thE

material

presented

ere was

already

ncluded

n

Has-

pelmath

1998.)

1493


4/20

t494

XlV.

Typological

characterization

f

language

amilies

and

linguistic

areas

l

r

.

l i

r

: r '

: i i

2.1.

Definite

and

indefinite

articles

Both

a definiteand an indefinitearticle(e'g'

English

the

bookla

book;

'tut'

62)

exist

in

all

-Romance

and

almost

all

Germanic

lan-

guages

plus

some

of

the

Balkan

languages

iUoaern

Greek,

perhaps

Albanian

and

Bul-

garian), but

not

outside

Standard

Average

Enropean.

To be

sure,

their

forms

and

syn-

tactii

behavior

show

considerable

diversity

(see

Nocentini

1996

for

an

overview)'

but

their

very

existence

s characteristic

nough'

The

distribution

of

articles

n

European

an-

guages s

shown

in

Map

107.1.

Abbrevi-

itions

of

language

ames

are

given n the

Ap'

pendix.)

2.2.

Relative

clauses

with

relative

pronouns

The typeof relativeclauseound in languages

such

as

German,

French

or

Russian

eems

o

be

unique

to

Standard

Average

European

languagis.

t

is characterized

y

the

follow-

ine

four

features:

The

relative

clause

s

post-

no-minal,

there

is an

inflecting

relative

pro-

noun,

this

pronoun

introduces

the

relative

clause,

nd

ihe

relative

pronoun

functions

as

a

resumptive,

. e.

it

signals

he

head's

ole

within

tlie

relative

clause

cf.

Lehmann

1984:

103-109,

Comrie

1998)'

n

English,

a

rela-

tive

construction

like

the

suspicious

woman

whom

I

described

also

displays

all

these

ea-

tures.

Furtherrnore,

n

most

SAE

languages

the relativepronoun is basedon an interrog-

ative

pronoun

(this s true

of

all

Romance,

ll

Slavii

and

some

Germanic

anguages,

Mod-

ern

Greek,

as

well

as

Hungarian

and

Geor-

gian).

(Languages

ike

German,

whose

rela-

Iiu.

p.onoun

is based

on

a

demonstrative,

r

Finnish,

which

has

a special

relative

pro-

noun,

are

not

common.)

The

geographical

distribution

of

the

relative

pronoun

strategy

is shown

n

MaP

107'2.

Tal

tz\

CB

Trk

Am

-

definite

nd

ndefinite

rticle

resent

-

- - -

onlydehnite rticle

resent

\

Map

107.1:

Definite

nd

ndefinite

rticle

In

large

parts of

eastern

Europe

there

are

no articlel

at

all

(East

Slavic,

West

Slavic,

Finno-Ugrian

other

than

Hungarian,

Turki-c'

Nakh-Daghestanian,

krtvelian).

Some

neigh-

boring

non-SAE

languages

o

have

definite

articles

e.

g.

Celtic,

Semitic,

Abkhaz'

Mord-

vin).

and

Turkish

has

an

indefinite

article,

but

no

neighboring

non-SAE

language

has

both

definite

and

indefinite

articles.

The

only

exception

among

Germanic

languages,

ce-

landic

(which

only

has

definite

articles

ike

nearby Celtic), is also the most

peripheral

Germanic

language

geographically.

We can

also

be

certain

that

the

existence

f

definite

and

indefinite

articles

s

not

an

Indo-Euro-

peanism:

The

Iranian

and

Indic

languages

i,au.

g.n.tully

lacked

articles

throughout

their

history.

World-wide,

articles

are

not

nearly

as

common

as

n Europe:

According

to

Dryer's

(1989b:

5)

rndings,

it

appears

hat

about

a

itti.d

of

the

languages

of

the

world

employ

articles"

125

out

of a

sample

of

about

40 0

languages).

Only

3l

languages

of

those

in

Drler'J

sample

i.

e'

less

han

8%)

have

both

definiteand indehnitearticles.

- - - -

only

particle

elative

lause

Map

107.2:

wo

relative

lause

ypes

n

Europe

The only other type that is widespread in

Europe

is

the

postnominal

relative

clause

introduced

by

a

relative

particle

(Lehmann

1984:

85-87),

which

often

occurs

n

the

same

language

beside

he

resumptive

elative

pro-

no,in

tlp"

just

described

an

English

elam.nle

would'be

-the

radio

that

I bought)'

Particle

relatives

of

this

type

exist

n

most

Slavic

and

Romance

anguages,

s

well

as

in

Scandina-

vian

languag.s

unA

Modern

Greek,

but

also

in

Welstian-d

rish

(Lehmann

1984:

88-90)'

The

relative

particle

s sometimes

iffrcult.to

distinguish

from

a

degenerate

resumptlve

pronoun,

and

in

many

European

anguages

EU

Du t

Fr

Sftl

Eng

Ddt

Pol

RG

Gm

Cz

Fr

HnE

Uk

Sln

It

SCr

-

relative

clause

with

introducing

relative

pro-


5/20

107. The Eulolxan

lirrguistic ateir: Statrdarcl

Avct':tgc

Littrtlpcatt

it developed

rom

a

relative

pronoun

thlouglr

the

graclual

oss of iuflectional distinctions.

However.

this also rneans

lrat

the

relativc

clause

oscs ts specificallyEuropean tlavor.

bectruse

particle

relatives are also ilttested

widely

elsewhere n

the

world

(e g.

in

l'cr'-

sian, Moderu

l-leblew. Nahuatl. Inclonesian.

Yorubar, nd Thai, cf. Lehnrann 1984:85 -

97).

l'Iowever.

1he relativc

prolloun

stfategy

clear'ly

s

typically

liulopcau.

It is not founcl

in the

easterrr nclo-Europcan anguages,

rncl

as

Comrie

(1998:

6l) notes.

relative

clauscs

fonned

usilrg he relative

pronoult

stlatcgy

ate

quite

exceptioual

outside Europc. cxccpt

as a recent

tcsult'of the

influcnce of Euro-

peall

languages...

'Ihe

relative

pronoun

strategy

hus seems o

be a lcmarkable

areal

typological fcatulc

of Er:r


6/20

I 1ll l

: l i l l

" ' :

t496

may be assiurilated

o agentsand

coded as

it nourinativc ubicct e.g. / /iAc t), or it ntrv

be assiurilated

o a

paticnt

or

goal,

so that

the stimulus

argument s codcd

as thc nomi-

native subject

(e.

g.

1/

pleuses

rc,).

In Bos-

song's

1998)

ypology,

he first

typc s called

generali;ing,

nd the second

ypc is called

irtverting.

ossong

tudies he expression

f

ten

common

expcricntial

predicates

n 40

European

auguages.

lc cornputcs hc

rcla-

tion

between nverting

predicates

nd

gener-

alizing

predicates,

rrivingat ligurcs

bctween

0.0

fbr English

(where

all

predicates

ar e

generalizing)

nd 5.0

for Lezgian

wherc

al l

predicates

re nvertingl.

By arbitrarily

divid-

ing the languagesnto those showing pre-

dorninantgeneralization

ratios

betwecn

0. 0

and

0.8) and

those shorving

prcdourinant

inversion

ratios

betrveen

.8 and

5.0).

we

arrive

at the

geographical

attcrn

shown u

Map 107.4.

N( r ( ) l : )

S wdo I

t)ut

(o

l)

Cnn(t;rt

Thus,

Bossong's

study

basically

confirms

earlier

claims

(Lazard

1990:

246-47,

Dahl

1990:

) that

the

gencraliziug

ypc is

charac-

terist ic

of SAE. although some of the fig-

uresare

perhaps

bit surprising

e.

g.

the

act

that

Hungarian

urns

out to be more

SAE

than

Germanor Dutch,

and

the nclusion

f

Turkish,

but not

Romanian

or Albanian.

with

respect

o

tiris eature). t

is not

possible

to explain

everything

ere,

but

rve

evidently

have

before

us a fairly typical

SAE

pattem

with

French

and English

at tl'recenter,

Celtic

(plus

celandic

his

irne)at

the

rvestern

mar-

gin,

Balto-Slavic,

iuno-Ugrian

and

Cauca-

siatr

at the

easternmargin,

and air ly

gradual

transitions

within

the macro-areas.

o

sys-

tcmatic

world-wide

studies

avc beenmade.

but at least the behavior of eastern ndo-

XIV.

' fypological

characterizatiou

f

languageamilies nd

inguist ic

rcas

European s fairly clear: ndic languages

re

rvcll-kno*'n tor thcir

"dative

subiects"of

expericncer crbs,

so agaiu the l'caturc

s

not

genetic

see

also Masica

1976, specially

Map 6. for the areal

distribution

of dative

subjects n Eurasia

and northern

Africa).

(See

Haspelmath

2001 for rnore discussion

of experiential

predicates

n European

an-

guages.)

2.5. Participial

assive

StandardAverage

Europcan anguages

ypi-

cally have a canonical

passive

onstruction

(*

Art.67) formed rvith

a

passive articiple

plus

an intransit ive

copula-likeverb

('be',

'becorne',or tl.re ike). In this passive he

original direct object becomes

hc subject nd

the

original subjcctmay

be ornitted,but

it

may

also be expressed

s an adverbial gent

phrase.

Such constructions

ccur n all

Ro -

nlauce

and Germanic anguages,

ut also

n

l : i rno87) S. rm( i l .8l )

L\ l ru.83)

I-tv(t s)

f l

t

. i i

t;,ili

tliiii,,

I f{iiiti,

U l i l l l r

Lil(o

i:r)

I'ol(0.881

JB()0)

l l r t (01{)

Cz(o

76)

I lngon)

r (o )

&il(0.10)

sl 'nor: t

I ' r t (o

Jl

Blg()s)

Crktr:zlt

Trkru

Map 107..1:

rcdontinant crrcrrlization

cel) ter)

s.

nversion

pcriphcry)

all

Slavic

including

EastSlavic)and Balkan

languages,

s rvell

as n lrish.

The

geographi-

cal distribution

of such

participial

passives

s

shown u Map 107.5.

I t(r{8)

SCr {}r i

I lonr(2.b)

Ir

Lt

ht

Fog

Dut Pol

RE

Brt

Cnn Cz

ljr

I lng Lkt

5ln

It SCt

Spn

Srd

llun

l'rt

Alb

Bl8

Nl l t

Cr k

Map 107.5: 'art icipial assivesn Europc

V.E


7/20

t491

l0?.

The

European

inguistic

area:

Standard

Average

European

No

passivesexist

in Nakh-Daghestanian

and

in

}iungarian,

and

passivesof

different

for-

mal

types

are

found

in

Turkic,

Georgian,

and

Armenian

(stem

suffrx),

in

Basque,

and

in

Celtic

(cf.

the

Welsh

'get'-passive:

Terry

got

his hitting by a snowball' for'Terry

got hit

by a

snowball').

Finnish

and

Irish

have

pas-

sives

ofa

different

syntactic

type:

In

this

con-

struction,

only

the

subject

is backgrounded,

while

the

direct

object

remains

n its

place.

Participial

passives are

very

rare

in

lan-

suases

other

than

Standard

Average

Euro-

i"ui.

ln

Haspelmath

(1990) I surveyed

a

world-wide

sample

of

eighty

languages

and

found

that

a

passive

exists

only

in

the

mi-

nority

of the

languages

thirty-one)'

Of

these

thirty-one

languages,

nly

four

have.a

pas-

sive

ormed

from

a

participle

plus

an

intran-

sitive

auxiliary

and

two

of

them

are

Euro-

pean languages (Latin and Danish). The

most

common

formal

type

of

passive

s the

stem

sufftx

(found

in

twenty-ftve

languages)'

Syntactically,

he

possibility

of

an

adverbial

agent

phrase

is also

by

no

means

universal,

but

it

is characteristic

of

SAE

languages

La-

zard

1990:246).

It must

be

admitted

that

the

SAE

status

of

this

feature

is

less evident

than

that

of

the

frrst

two

features

because

he

eastern

lndo-

European

languages

also

tend

to

have

pas-

sives

of

this

type.

In fact,

in my

1990

study'

the

two

non-European

languages

with

parti-

ciple-auxiliary

passives

were

Baluchi

(an

lra-

nian language)and Maithili (an Indic lan-

guage).

Thus',

one

might

say

that

this

feature

is

an

Indo-European

genealogical

feature'

However,

at

least

the

Celtic

languages

and

Armenian,

two

non-SAE

branches

of

Indo-

European,

do

not

have

such

passives, and

Maltese

is a

non-Indo-European

language

with

such

a

passive

calqued from

Italian)'

2.6.

Anticausative

Prominence

There are

three

ways

in

which

languages

can

express

nchoative+ausative

alternations

such

as

'get

losVlose',

break

(intr.)/break

(tr')',

'rise/raise'.

One

is

by

means

of

a

causative

derivation (- Art.66), i.e' a derived verb

based

on the

inchoative

member

of

the

al-

ternation,

e.

g.

Mongolian

xail-uul''melt

(tr)',

.

from

xajl-

'melt

(intr.)'.

The

second

is by

means oi

an

anticausative

derivation,

i. e.

a

derived

verb

based

on

the

causative

member,

e.

g.

Russian

zmenit''sja

change

(intr')',

from

izimi{

tchange

(tr.)'.

(The

third

type,

in

which

neither

member

is derived

from

the

other,

i. e.

non'directed

lternations,

will

not

be

considered

urther

here.)

In

Haspelmath

(1993), examined

3l

verb

pairs n

2l-J1n-

guages and

found

that

languages

differ

greatly

n the

way

inchoative-causatlve

alrs

are

expressed:

Some

languages

ate

anticau-

sative-protninent,

referring

anticausatives

o

causatives,

while

others

are

causalive-promi-

nent.

lt turns

out

that

anticausative-promi-

nence

s a

characteristic

eature

of

SAE'

In

my

sample,

German,

French,

Romanian,

Russian,

Modern

Greek

and

Lithuanian

show

he

highest

percentages

f

anticausative

verb

pairs

(between

100%

and

74'h

of all

pairs

that

do

not

belong

to

the

third,-non-

directed,

ype).

The

percentage

n the

Euro-

pean languages

f

my

sample

are

shown

in

Map

107.6.

Fin

47"k

lzg

40'/"

65'/"

-

70- 100%

nticausatives

- -

- -

50-70%

anticausatives

Map 107.6: ercentagef anticausativeairs

By contrast,

Asian

languages

show

much

lower

percentages

f

anticausatives,

refer-

ring

causatives

nstead

e.

g.

Indonesian:

0'%.

Mongolian:

1l%,

Turkish:

34%,

Hindi/Urdu

35u/o,

ezgian:

40'%).

An

intermediate

posi-

tion

is occupied

by the

Finno-Ugrian

lan-

guages of

eastern

Europe

(Finnish 47'%'

Udmurt

46oh,

Hungarian

Muk)

as

well

as

Georgian

(68%)

and

Armenian

(65'lu). n a

study

involving

more

languages

rom

Asia,

Africa

and

Europe

but

less

anguage-partic-

ular detail. Masica(1976) ound a clear dis-

tinctive

pattern for

Europe:

few

causatives,

heavy

reliance

on

anticausatives

see

espe-

cially

his Maps

2 and

3).

ln

a recent

world-

wide

study

of

18

verbs from

80

languages,

Nichols

et

al.

(to

appear)

report

that

in

in-

choative-causative

airs

involving

inanimate

participants

(i.

e. the

most

typical

subtype)'

ihe

causative

s

generally avored

worldwide

and

is strongly

disfavored

only

in

Europe.

Lit

Jng

44%

Rom

96%


8/20

r498

XIV.

Typological

characterization

f language

amilies

and

linguistic

areas

, 1 l l l

titi

, ' i

l ; , i

_

Anticausative-prominence

is

not

an

Indo_

turopeanism:

Older

lndo_European

ad

a

productive

causative

ormation,

which losiits productivity

in

the

European

b;.;;;;

but

continued

to

be

produciive

in

.urt.in

Indo-European

cf.

the

low

ngrr.

of:jy"-un_

ticausatives

n

Hindi/Urdu).

2.7.

Dative

external

possessors

In

Kdnig

&

Haspelmath

199g)

and

Hasoel_

math

(1999),

we

studied

he

clistribution

f

external

possessors

n

thirty

European

lan_

guages

-

Art.

73).

We

found

three

main

lan_

guage

ypes

n

Europe: (i)

those

with

dative

ex.ternal

ossessors.

.

g.

Gernran

Die

Mutter

t'uscttt

dent

Kind

die

Huure

.The

mother

is

washing he child'shair., ii) thosewith loca_

tiv_e

xternal

possessors,

.

g.

Swedish

Nrigon

briit

armen

pd

honont

,soireone

brokJK

arm

(lit.

on

him)',

and

(iii)

those

hat

laci

external

possessors

nd

must

express

orrar_

sors

NP-internally,

e.

g.

Englislr.

me

SAf

teature.

xternal

possessors

n

the

dative,

s

lound

ln

Ronrance.

Continental

West

Ger_

manic,

Balto-Slavic,

ungarian

anO

Salkan

languages

(Greek,

Albanian).

North

Ger-

manic

and

Balto-Finnic

anguages

ave

oca-

tive

external

possessors,

.

e-.

h--ey

ra

,or"_

what.

peripheral

SAE

languages

itt,

..rp".t

to

this

eature.

he

geographical

istr ibuiion

ls slrown n Map 107.7.

hyena

ate

the

hare's

ish').

This

type

is

not

found

in

Europe

at

all.

Conve.srty,'Outiue

x-

ternalpossessorseem o be veryrareoutside

Europe the

only

case

am

awire

of is

E;..

cf.

Ameka

1996),

so

this

is

a u".y

.oburr"^i

ample

of

an

SAE

feature.

2.8.

Negative

pronouns

and

lack

of

verbal

negation

The

areal

distribution

of

negation

n

Eurooe

has

been

studied

in

detaif

by

Bernini

'&

Ramat

(1996)

(see

also

Ramat

&

Sernini

1990).

Here

I. rvill

single

out

just

on.

urp..i

ol

negatlon.

he

cooccurrence

fverbal

nisa_

tion

with

negative

ndefinite

pronounr.

dlr-

tinguish

rwo

main

types: i)

V +

Nt

(verb

I

negative indefinite), e.g. German Niernand

kontmt

'nobody

comes',

and

(ii)

NV

+

NI

(negated

verb

+

negative

indefinitet.

e.

e.

Modern

Greek

Kandnas

dhen

rxete

,noboiv

(l i t .

not)

comes'.

A

third,

*l^.a

tvp.

rnintl

be

distinguished

n which

verbai

n.nuiion

cooccu.rs

ith

negative

ndefinites

onl/when

the

indefinite

ollows

the

verb

but

noi

when

it

precedes

t.

e.

g.

Italian

Nessuno

iene

no_

body

comes'.

but

Non

ho visto

nesszro

Not

I

have.seen.nobody'.

or

our purposes

we

can

crassrly

hls

ype

as

a

subtype

f

(i),

V +

NI .

The

Standard

Average

European

typ.

L

V +

NI

(cf.

Bernini

&

Ramat

f

SgO:

S+,

Has_

pelmath 1997:202).It is found

in

French if

we

disregard

he particle

,le),

Occitan

and

al l

\rennantc

tanguages.

s

well

as

(in

the

mixed

vanety)

n

Ibero-

and

ltalo_Romance

nd

Al_

banian

(but

not

in

Romanian

or

other

Bal_

kan

languages).

The geographical

distribu_

tlon

of

the

types

s

shown

on

Man

107.g.

t ;

t : , i i

f

i.ii;,

[ i i i l i .

Fin

fft

Lfu

Lir

Pol

H"g

Map

107.7:

ative

xtemalossessor

In

the

far

west (Welsh.

Breron.

English)

nd

ln

tne

southeast

Turkish.Lezgian)

l-Europe

there

are

anguages

hich

do*not

ruu.

^iJr_

nal possessors

t

all .

The

eastern

ndo_Euro_

pean

anguages

Kurdish,

persian

and

Hindi/

Urdu

also

belong

o

this

ype.

Outside

Europe

a fourth

rype

enjoys

onsiderable

opularify:

the

"relation-usurping"

type.

where'he

pos_

sessor

usurps"

the

syntactic

elation

of

th e

possessum

e.

g.

Chichewa,

Bantu

anguage,

has

The

hyena

are

the

hare

the

fish'

i"i

.firJ

Rom I zo

Brs

aG)-"

_ . \ \ - - l

I r k

M

Map

107.8:.Lu1ey"_g.r

acking

verbal

negation

wlth

a

negative

ndefinite

Al l

the

eastern

European

languages

Balto_

Jlavrc.

Frnno-Ugrian.

Turkic,

Nakh-Daghes-

l lniol).wirh

the

exceprion

f

Georgianiand

the

Celtic

anguages

n

the

west

how the

NV +

NI

type.

This

ype

s

also

hat

of the

D\]t

pol

Ru

Cm

Cz

F.

Hng

Ukr

Bq

stn

It

scr

spn

srd

Ronr

Pd

Alb

BtB

Nl l t

Gr k


9/20

t499

107.

The

European

inguistic

area:

Standard

Average

European

eastern

Indo-European

languages

(lranian

and

lndic),

as

well

as

hat

of

the

clear

major-

ity

of

the

world's

languages:

Kahrel

(1996)

his

studied

negation

n

a representative

world-

wide

sample

of

40

languages

nd

found

only

five languages with V + NI negative

pat-

terns,

one

of

which

is the

SAE

language

Dutch

(the

other

four

are

Mangarayi

(Aus-

tralia),

Evenki,

Chukchi

(Siberia)'

and

Nama

(southern

Africa)),

as against

4l NV

+

Nl

patterns,and

seven

others.

found

a

very

sim-

ilar

pattern in

my

(non-representative)

ample

of

40

languages

Haspelmath

1997:

202).

2.9.

Particles

n

comparative

constructions

Comparative

constructions

were

nvestigated

by

Stassen

1985)

n

a world-wide

study

of

l9

languages

-

fut.75).

Stassen

distinguishes

six

main

ways

n

which

the

standard

of

com-

parisonmay be expressed:hreekindsof loc-

itive

comparatives

'bigger from

X',

'bigger

to

X',

'bigger

at

X'),

the

exceed

omparative

('Y

is

big

exceeding

'),

the

conjoined

com-

parative

('Y

is big,

X is

little'),

and

the

par-

ticle

comparative

'bigger

han

X')'

The

par-

ticle

in this

latter

type

is often

related

to

a

relative

pronoun

(cf.

English

thanl

hat'

Latin

quamlqui),

nd

the

case

marking

of

the

stan-

dard

is

not

influenced

by

the

particle

so

that

it is

possible

o

distinguish

I

love

you

m-ore

than

she'

rom'I

love

you more

than

her').

fu

Heine

(1994)

notes,

he

six

types

are

not

evenly

distributed

among

the

languages.

f

the world. Of the l8 particle comparatives

in Stassen's\ample,

3

are

n Europe,

and

of

the

l7 European

anguages

n

the sample,

3

have

a

particle

comparative.

The

distribution

within

Europe

again

conforms

to

our

expec-

tations:

Particle

comparatives

are

found

in

Germanic,

Romance,

Balto-Slavic,

he

Bal-

kans,

Hungarian,

Finnish

and

Basque,

o

his

is

the

SABtype.

The

distribution

s

shown

n

Map

107.9.

The

locative

comparatives

re

all

at

the

west-

ern

fringe

(Breton)

or

the

eastern

iinge

of

Europe

f

innish,

Russian,

Nenets.

Ubykh'

Turkish.

Laz).

The

other

two

types

do

tlot

exist

at all

in

Europe

-

the

exceed

ompara-

tive

is

founcl

particularly

in

Africa.

and

the

conjoined

comparative

occurs only in the

Americas

and

Oceania.

2.10.

Relat ive-based

quat ive

onstruct ions

Comparison

of equality

equative

onstruc-

tions)

s

discussed

ess

often

than

compartson

of

inequality,

nd

nobody

has

undertaken-

study

of

equatives

on

a

world-wide

scale'

Still,

there

are

good reasons

o

think

that

equative

onstructions

rovide evidence.for

Sfandard

Average

European

Haspelmath&

Buchholz

1998).

n Europe.

nany

anguages

have

an

equative

onstruction

hat

is based

on an adverbial

elative-clause

onstructlon'

For example,

Catalan

has

or

Z

corn

X'as Z

as

X'

(where

Z

is the

adjective

and

X

is the

standard).

Catalan

cont

s an

adverbial

ela-

tive

pronoun and

an

s

a correlative

demon-

stratlve.

A

very

similar

construction

s

found

elsewhere

n

Romance

(Portugrtese rio

Z

conto

X,

Occitan

an

Z corna

'),

in Germantc

(German

so

Z

tt'ie,f

.

in Slavic

(Czech

ak

Z

jako

X,

Russian

ak(oi)

le Z

kak

.l,),

n

Ro-

mani

(katle

Z

sar

l).

in

Hungarian

(olvan

Z

mint

X),

in

Finnish

(niin

Z

kuin

X),

and

in

Georgian

isetive

Z

rogorc

l').

n the

English

constiuction,

the

relative-clause

rigin

of

cs

is not fully transparentsynchronically.

but

diachronically

as

derives

rom

a demonstra-

tive

(eull

slld

>

a// so)

that

was

also

used

as

a relative

pronoun. n

some

Balkan

an -

guages.

he

correlative

demonstrative

s not

used

(e.

g.

Bulgarian

xubaw

koto

lebe

'a s

pretty as

you'),

but

the

standard

marker

is

clearly

of

relative-pronoun

rigin.

(There

s

probably some

connection

between

he

rela-

iiue-p.onoun

rigin

of

equative

markers

an d

the

relative-pronoun

origin

of

comparatlve

standard

markers

hat

we saw

n

$

2.9.).

Non-SAE

languages

have

quite

dift'erent

equative

onstructions.

any

SOV

anguages

in eastern Europe have a specialequative

standard

marker

(Lezgian

ti:,

Kalmyk

iitrg:

also

Basque

be:ain

and

Maltese

daqs),

and

the Celtic

languages

have

a

special

(non-

demonstrative)

marker

on

the adjective

e.g.

lrish

chornh

Z le

X'EQUATIvE

with X').

ln

the

Scandinavian

anguages,

he

word

'equ-

ally'

is

used

on

the

adjective

e.

g.

Swedish

lika

Z som

X'equally

Z as

X').

The

distr i-

bution

of the

relative-based

quative

con-

, ' uby

"

t",

'.

Ttk

-

particle comparative

- - - -

locative

comparatlve

Map

107.9:

Comparative

ypes

n Europe


10/20

The

European

inguistic

area:

Standard

Average

Europeurr

r

50l

eastern

aucasus,

nd

ndee.d

n

manv

parts

of

the

world,

but

they

uy

nru.",

ad

subject

erson

greement

irking.)

ntensifier-reflexive

ifferentiation

rewords ike English elf,Ger-

sclbsl,

French

ftnrc

and

Russiin

ralr

characterize

noun

phrase

el.erent

s

s

opposed

o

an

implicit

or

explicit

e.

g.

The

pope

hir)self

gow

i,

i,i

.

e.

not

just

the

ior*ainols

-

Kcinig

&

Siemund

999).

n

manv

he

intensifie,

^pr.rrion

i,

;i;6

s

a reflexive

ronoun,

or

inrtan."

in

xod-ai

'himself':

Huiang

xocl_oi

himself',

and

Huiang

xoias_ru2

id

elf-ecc

aw]

Hushing

saw

hini

However,

feature

hat

is"

ypicai

of

anguages

s

he

differentiation

i..ff.^_pronouns nd

ntensifiers

Konig

&

Has_

1999).

or

nstance,

erman'nas

rclr

.ve)

s.

selbst

intensifier),

ussian

ras

s.

sall,

Italian

has

si vs.

re$o,

Greck

eaft6

vs.

dtrjos.

Map

I

07.

2

,f,o*,

if,.l"n_

n

Europe

with

special

cflexive ro-

hat

are

not

identifical

o

intensifiers.

striking,

but

which

nevcrthelcss

ecnr

good

candidate-s

or

Europeanisms.

o

maps-rvill

be

given

for

these

'eatures,

ncl

he

.ui.l.n..

wil l

be

summarized

nly

briefly.

3.1. Verb ronting n polar

nterrogativcs

ln

thc

l l lgc

rnl . ior i tv

l '

uuguirue.s.

fo lur

i r r -

tcl logativcs

art

urar.ked

y

interrogative

n_

tonation

or

i l l l

interrogativc

articli

or

both

(-

Art.

77).

ht

his

sanrple

f '

79

languages.

Ultan

1978)

bund

only

,.u.n

tu,rtu,ft"i

showing

the

altcrnative

srrategy

oi uJ,.U

fronting (oftcn

called,'subject_i,erb

n.",er_

lon").

Of

these.

ix

are

European

English.

pn9h,

Rornanian.

Russian.

Hungo-ii,,,r,

Finnish;

he

sevenrh

anguage

s

lufafiyj.

"

that

the

SAlr

status

of verb

fronting

ieenrs

beyond

doubt.

In

lirct,

the

large

rn,ri-o.ity

i

Germanic, Romance and Slir-vic a,rguog.,

(plus.

Mo.dcrn

Greek)

appear

to

hauJ

virb

tront l r ' tg

n polur

qucst ions

rr

one

for .nr

r

another.

The

three

Europeau

anguages

or

which

Ultan

explicit ly

eports

hit

rio

verb

rrontlng_occurs

re

pcr.iplrcral:

asque.

Girc_

Irc

and

Lithulnian.

:ur t l rcrr r rorc.

n

E

lu, . r_

guages

re

characterized

y

tlre

absence

f

an

interrogative

particle.

n

UItan.s

Ootn,

ir .

n ine

.European

anguagcs

xhibi t ing

'p, i r_

trc lc

n polar

qucst ions

rc

al l pcr iphcr i i l

o

a

greater

r

lesscr

xtcnt:

lasque,

r ish,

Scot_

tish

Gaeiic,

Albanian,

Hungarian,

Lit lrua

nian.

Russian,

Finnish,

Turk]sh (and

I

can

add Nakh-Daghestanian). crb

fronting

iir

polar

questions

was

suggestecl

s

a

Eiiro_

peanism

already

by

lleCkman

(

1934)

(c.f.

Dahl

1990).

3.2.

Conrparative

arking

of

adjectives

Most

European

anguagcs

ave

special

orrns

lor

ac|cctlves

ccurring

n

cornparative

ol. l_

structlons.

For

instancc.

En-clish

uscs

th c

sull lx

-cr^in

.this

way

(The

dog-is

igg_er

ltr-,,t

I l te

cat).

Such

an

nllcctional

markei

of

adiec_

trves

s

not

cotlrntou

n

the

world's

ancuaces

outs.ide^

f_

Europc.

Somc

an

guagcs

ri

roirl.

l{lnd

ot

adverbial

part icle

nrodilying he ad_

Jecrlve 'rnore'). ut

perhaps

he

most

cont_

mon

type

s

represented

y

Japanese.

vhcre

the

comparative

cmantics

s

iar.iea

Uy

tlre

starrdard

narker

alone

e.

g.

itru_gu

,rki

,.u,li

ookli

[dog-sunr

at

from

big]

.rhJ

dog

is

Uig_

ger

han

the

cat').

^

Special

omparative

orms

are

ound

n

all

Germanic.

Balto-slavic

and

Balkan

lau_

qy3Sel

wirh

the

exception

f

Ronraniau

nd

Albanran),

and

rnost

Rornlncc

languages

preserve

t

least

our

suppletive

onni

(elc.

Rm

Alb

Blg

Lzg,

c.8

Trk

Am

107.

2:

Intensifier-reflexive

ifferentiation

ifferentiation

s

not

an

ropeanism,

ecause

astern

ndo-

anguages

ave

he

,ua.

.*o..._

or

intensifiers

nd

reflexives

e.

g.

per_

r-or/-ai,

lindi

aap).

There

are

nJ

oJ_

orld-wide

tudies

et,

but it seenrsnon-differentiation

i

very

.ornrnon

he

world,

and

while

diffeientiation

s

ound

elscwhere,

t

is

not

io"n,l

i,i;;;;;

djacent

o

European

anguages.

Some

urther

ikely

SAE

features

section,

will

mention

few

eatures

re

ess

well-documented

han

hose

u

whose

eographical

istribution

s

es s


11/20

i ' ' ' t l l t

tiil

: r : .

' ,

, ' :

r

500

struction

n Europe

s shown

n Map

107.10'

following

Haspelmath

&

Buchholz

(1998:

297\.

Nnts

Kom

Udm

Tat

LzB

crg

Map

107.10:

elative-based

quative-constructions

Impressionalistically,

elative-based

quatives

seem

o be

rare

n the

world's

anguages,

nd

the eastern

ndo-European

anguages

o

not

seem

to use

them

in

general

(however, a

counterexample

s Punjabi).

2.11. Subject

ersonaffixes

s str ict

agreement

markers

The majority

of

the

world's

languages

ave

bound

person

markers

on the

verb that

cross-

refer to

the

verb's subject

or

agent).

When

thesesubjectafftxescooccurwith overt sub-

ject

NPs

(full

NPs

or

independent

subject

pronouns),

they

are

called agreement

mark-

ers.

However,

n

most

anguages

hey

can oc-

cur on

their own

and

need not

cooccur

with

overt subject

NPs.

For example,

n the

Bul-

garian

phrasevie abotite

you

(pl.)

work',

we

see he

subject

sufftx

-ite

(2nd person

plural)

cooccurring

with the

independent

subject

pronoun lie

'you

(pl.)',

showing

that

-ile

is

an agreement

marker.

But

in

Bulgarian

t

is

equally

possible

and

probably more

common

to say

ust

rabotite'you

(pl.)

work',

i.e. the

subject

sullix can

have

a referential

unction

on its orvn. In German, by contrast. this is

not

possible:

you

work'

\s ihr arbeit-el.

Since

the agreement

ufftx

-el

does

not

have such

an

independent

eferential

unction,

the

sub-

ject

pronoun rlr cannot

be omitted'

Lan-

guages

ike German

are

often

called

"non-

pro-drop languages",

and

languages

like

Bulgarian

are

called

"pro-drop

languages";

better

terms

would be

"strict-agreement

lan-

guages" s.

"referential-agreement

languages".

It has sometimes

beeu

hought

that

strict

agreement,

s exhibited

by German,

English,

and

French,

s the

norm

and

that

referential

agreement

s somehow

special.

But

in fact,

referentialagreements far more widespread

XIV.

Typological

characterization

f

language

amilies

and

linguistic

areas

in the

world's

languages,

and

strict

subject

agreements characteristicof a few European

languages,

some

of which

happen

to

be

well-

known.

In her

world-wide

sample

of

272

languages,

Siewierska

1999)

inds

only

two

strict-agreement

anguages,

Dutch

(an

SAE

language)

and

Vanimo

(a

Papuan

language

of

New

Guinea).

Siewierska

urther

notes

that

outside

of

Europe,

she

s aware

of

only

two

additional

strict-agreement

anguages

hat

are

not in

her sample

Anejom

and

Labu,

two

Oceanic

anguages).

Gilligan

(1987)

reached

a similar

conclusion

on

the

basis

of

a sample

of 100

languages.

he

distribution

of

strict

subjectagreementmarkers n someEuropean

languages

s shown

n

MaP

107.11.

Fin

Est

Lfu

ur

Pol

@ u *

Hng

LJk

- [6nguagsswith strict subjectagreement

- - - -

languages

with obligatory

subject

pronouns'

lacking

verb agreement

Map

107.11:

Obligatory

subject

pronouns

The map

shows

wo

non-contiguous

reas

n

which subject

agreement

suffrxes

cannot

have

a referential

unction:

Germanic

and

Gallo-

Romance

anguages

with Welsh

on

the

one

hand, and

Russian

on

the other.

Perhaps

nly

the

western European

area

should

be thouefit

of

as being

relevant

for SAE;

in

Russian,

past-tense erbs

do

not have

subject

person

affrxes,

o

Russian

s not a

very

good

exam-

ple

of a strict-agreement

language.

In

the

eastern

Nordic

languages

Norwegian,

Swed-

ish, Danish),

he subject

pronounsare obliga-

tory

as

they are

in

English, German

or

Ice-

landic,

but

the languages

ave

ost agreement

distinctions

on the

verb entirely

(cf'

Swedish

jag

biterldu

biterlhan

biter

'llyoulhe

bite(s)',

Icelandic

69 bftbrt

biturlhann

bitur).

T\ese

languages

are

thus

"non-pro-drop"

in a

sense,

ut

they

are

not strict-agreement

an-

guages.English

s approaching

his

type'

as

the only

remnant

of subject

agreement

s the

3rd

person

singular

present-tense uflix

-s.

(Thereare also some anguages f this type

I

eq

9n

It scr

Sf

Srd

Rrn

"lte:

Prt

Alb

Bl8

GB

"

Mtt

Grk

Trk

Alm

Eng

Dut

Pol

R6

Gm

Cz

Fr

Llng

Uk

Sln

It SCr

r ;l,i

: , n a


12/20

I 502

Italian maggiore'bigger', ntinore'smaller',

peggiore'worse',

igliore'better').

ompara-

tive

forms

also

exist

in Basque

e.

g.

haundi-

ago'bigg-er'),

Hungarian

nagy-obb'bigg-er')'

Finnish

iso-mpi'bigg-er'),

nd

other

Finno-

Ugrian

languages.

Comparative

orms

are

not completely

un-

known

outside

of

Europe.

Arabic

has

a spe-

cial

comparative

brm

(e.g.

?akbar'bigger',

from

kabiir

'big'),

but

it

is unique

among

Afro-Asiatic

languages

n this

respect.

Old

Indo-Iranian

languages

had

comparative

forms,

and

the

modern

Iranian

languages

have

preservedhem

to some

extent

e.

g.

Per-

sian

ter.

Zaza

-tr\.

But

further

east,

n mod-

ern

Indic,

the

comparative

does

not exist

anymore,

and

anguages

ike Hindi-Urdu

and

Bengali

use a

construction

analogous

o

the

Japanese

xample

ust

cited.

Similarly,

n the

Uralic

languages,

he

further

east

we

go,

the

fewer

comparatives

we

find.

For

instance'

Khanty

(a

Finno-Ugrian

anguage

poken

n

western

Siberia,

. e.

outside

of

Europe)

does

have

a

comparative

orm

in

'sak

e.

g.

ant-sak

'better'),

which

is

used

when

no

standard

s

present.But

in a complete

comparative

con-

struction.

no

marking

is found

on

the

adjec-

tive

(e.

g. narlke:se:-n

e:x'elt

arn [you

knife-

2sc

from

goodl

'better

than

your knife'.

Ni-

kolaeva

1999:21).

Thus,

although

his

feature

s

not

contined

to

Europe,

t is

typical

of

a SAE

feature

n

that it

is robustly

present n

western

ndo-

European

and

Uralic

languages,

but

gets

rarer

the

further

east

we

go

in these

amilies.

3.3.

"A

and-B"

conjunct ion

The

feature

discussed

n

this

section

s

less

distinctive

han

the

others

mentioned

so

far'

but

I hope

o show

hat

it is not

at

all devoid

of

interest.

Stassen

2000)

offers

the

first

world-wide ypologicalstudy of NP conjunc-

tion

strategies,

based

on

a sample

of

260

languages

-

Art.82).

He distinguishes

wo

basic

types,

and-languages

using

a symmet-

ric

particle) and

l'illr-languages

(using

an

asymmetric

comitative

marker).

Two thirds

of Stassen's

ample

languages

are and-lan'

guages,

nd

since

SAE

clearly

belongs

o this

type,

oo,

it is not

a

very distinctive

property.

And-languages

over

all

of

northern

Eurasia,

South

Asia,

the

Middle

East

and

northern

Africa,

Australia,

New

Guinea,

and

parts of

Central

and

South

America.

Mllr-languages

are encountered

n sub-Saharan

Africa,

East

and SoutheastAsia, the islandsof Oceania,

and

large

areas

of North

and South

America.

XIV.

Typological

characterization

f language

amilies

and

linguistic

areas

However,within the and-languageshere are

several

ub-types

ccording

o

the

position of

the

particle,

which

we may

call

"A

and-B",

"A-ind

8",

"A-and

B-and",

and

"A

B-and"

(of

the

remaining

ogical

possibilities'

and-A

B" seems

o

be inexistent,

and

"and-A

and-

B" occurs

only

as

a secondary

attern).Most

European

languages,

and

in

particular

all

SAE

languages,

elong

to

the

sub-type

"A

and-B".

The types

"A-and

B-and"

and

"A-

and

B"

are

found

in

some

languages

of

the

Caucasus

nd

in some

Turkic

languageg

as

well

as

scattered

throughout

northern

Eu-

rasia

and

South

fuia

(e.

g.

in

Abkhaz,

fuchi,

Persian.Sinhalese, amil, Burmese,Korean

according

o Stassen;

tassen

lso

points out

that

there

is

a correlation

with

verb-final

word

order

here).

Furthertnore'

some

periph-

eral

European

anguages

make

restricted

use

of the

ruitft-strategy

e.

g.

Russian

my s

toboj

'I

and

you',

lit.

'we

with

you', and

also

Old

Irish,

Lithuanian,

Polish

and

Hungarian,

according

o Stassen).

aken

together,

hese

data

do show

that

belonging

o

the

"A

and-

B" type

is not

a trivial

feature

of

the SAE

linguistic

area.

3.4.

Comitative-instrumental

yncretism

In

all SAE

languages,he prepositionthat

expresses

ccompaniment

:

comitative)

also

serves

o

express

he

instrument

role

(e.g.

English

with:

w'ith

her husbqndlrith

he

ham-

rrer). Such

anguages

re

said

o exhibit

com-

itative-instrumental

yncretism.

Stolz

(1996)

studied

comitative

and

instrumental

markers

in a

world-wide

sample

of 323

anguages

nd

found

that

this

kind

of

syncretism

s typical

of

Europe.

Non-European

languages

more

commonly

possess

eparate

markers

or

these

two

semantic

roles

(e.g.

Swahili

na

'with

(comitative)',

krvc'with

(instrumental)'.

As

Table

107.1

hows,

about

wo

thirds

of Stolz's

sample

anguages

re

non-syncretic,

nd only

one

quarter is syncretic.

The

remaining

1n-

guugesbelong

to a

mixed

type,

which

I ig-

nore

here

or

the sake

of simplicity;

hus,

he

percentages o

not

add

uP

to

100%.)

Two

areas

diverge

significantly

rom

the

general rend:

Oceania

has

ar less

yncretism

ihan

the

world

average,

nd

Europe

has

far

more

syncretism

than

the

world

average'

When

we look

at

the

pattern within

Europe'

it becomes

even

clearer

hat

we are

dealing

with

an

SAE

feature

as

Stolz

recognizes,

f'

1996:

20).

Of

the

l6

non-syncretic

anguages

in Europe, l0 are Caucasiananguages,

.e '

they

are

clearly

outside

of SAE,

and

one

is

' l l l

I

l l i l

:

t l

I i ,

f : ' , r t ,

l . ; : , 1

h;;rl,

I r l : t t l i ;

E E I I I i


13/20

The

European

inguistic

area:

Standard

Average

European

107.1:

comitative-instrumental:

yncretic

and non-syncretic

anguages

I 503

syncretic

e.

g.

English)

languages

percentage

non-syncretlc

e.

g.

Swahili)

languages

percentage

,

25

20

l 6

l 2

6

79

49%

3 t %

2 t %

18%

t0%

24%

l 6

38

54

4 t

54

209

3r,yn

58%

69%

7 l o

86%

65"1,

politically,

not

anthropologically,

in

(Greenlandic).

Four

of

the

remainine

re

also

otherwise

not

typica-i

of SAE

(Basque,

Finnish,

tr,tattese.

And when

we

look

at the

38

Indo-

languages

n

Stolz's

sample,

we

syncretism

cannot

be regarded

as

an

Of the eight Indo-Euro-

languages

not

spoken

in

Europe,

only

show

syncretism,

while

five

show

non-

Thus,

in

Asia Indo-Europearr

an-

ehave

ike

Asian

languages,

nd

there

no

general

pattern

for

Indo-European.

Suppletive

second

ordinal

languages

ave

a

suppletive

orm

of the

numeral

'first',

i. e.

a form

not

de-

from

the

cardinal

numeral

.one'.

An

s

Gerrnan,

where'lst'

is

erster

un-

o

eins'l'),

contrasting

with

other

such

as zweiter'2nd'

(cf.

zwei

,2'\,

(cf vier'4'), and so on. In Stolz's

study

of

100

dnguages

world-wide,

are

95 languages

with

special

ordinal

and

of

these,

78

have

a suppletive

for

'hrst'.

Thus,

languages

that

say

'oneth'

for

'lst'

are

not

common.

the

same

sample

has

only

22 lan-

n

which

the word

for

.2nd,,

too,

is

and

not

derived

from..2'

(e.

g.

second).

Thus,

most

languages

have

'twoth'

for

'2nd'.

The

22languages

have

a

suppletive

2nd'word

are

lieavilv

n

Europe:

17

are

European

and

this

type

is

clearly

the

mijor-

within Europe (which is represented

y

27

n

Stolz's

sample).

Of the

l0

Euro-

anguages

hat

do

not

have

a

suppletive

ordinal,

six

are

clearly

outside

SAE

Turkish,

Armenian,

Georgian,

Lez-

Greenlandic).

Among

SAE

linguages,

some

Balkan

languages

Romanian,

Al-

Romani)

and

German

lack

a supple-

second

ordinal.

This

is

clearly

a very

marginal

feature

n

grammar,

but

it is

intriguing

that

it

should

show

such

a clear geographical

istribution.

3.6.

Some

other

characteristics

f SAE

The

features

examined

so

far

present

the

most

striking

evideuce

or

Standard

Averase

Furopean,but thereareprobably uny -oi"

features

hat

will

turn

out to

be

characieristic

of

the

core

European

anguages

n

one

way

or another.

In

this

subsection,

everal

such

candidates

will

be

mentioned

brieflv.

The

first

few

features

n the

following

list

ire

purely

negative:

At

first

glance,

his

may

seem

odd,

but

of course

he

lack

of a

category

hat

is

widespread

elsewhere

s

no

lesJ

sienificant

than

the

presence

f

a category

hat

is rare

elsewhere.

(i)

Lack

of

an

alienable/inalienable

pposi-

tion

in

adnominal

possession'

Art.

jil.

ln

Nichols's

1992)

world-widesample.almost

half

of

the languages

how

such

an

opposi-

t ion,

but

no

European

anguage

oes

il lZ:

123).

More generally,

his

opposition

s

rarer

in

the

Old

World

and

common

in the

New

World,

but

in

Europe

t is

even

ess

common

than

in

Africa

and

Asia.

(ii)

Lack

of

an

inclusive/exclusive

pposition

in.first person

non-singular

pronouns.

Again,

this

opposition

is

commonest

n

the

New

World

and

in

the

Pacihc

region,

but

in

Europe

it is

even

rarer

than

in

Africa

and

Asia,

as was

shown

by

Nichols

1992:

123).

(iii)

Lack

of

reduplicating

onstructions.

have no systematic vidence o back uo the

claim

that

this

is

a

characteristic

eature

of

European

anguages,

ut

reduplication

s

so

common

across

anguages

hat

its almost

o_

tal

absence

n

the

core

European

anguages

becomes

striking.

(Interestingly,

eduplication

existed

n

older

Indo-European

anguages

t

least

in

one

construction,

the

perfect,

but

even

here

t

was

lost

entirely

by

the

Middle

Ages.)


14/20

I 504

( iv)

Discoursepragmatic

notions

such

as

topic

and focus are expressed rimarily by

sentence

tress

and word

order

difl-erences

(Lazard

1998:

I 6).

Only the

Celtic anguages

and French give

a

very

prominent

role

to

clefting,

and

particles

rnarking

discourse

pragmatic

otions

are virtually

unknown.

(v)

SVO

basicword

order at

the evel

of the

clause.

This

feature

s

of course

ound

else-

where

in

the

world,

but in

Europe

it

corre-

lates particularly

well with

rhe

orher

SAE

features.

The

Celtic languages

n

the west

have VSO

order

(except

or Breton,

which

is

also

otherwise

more

SAE

than Irish

and

Welsh),

nd

the eastern

anguages

ave

SO V

word order. nterestingly, alto-Finnic Fin-

nish,

Estonian,

tc.)

and

(less

unequivocally)

Hungarian

have

SVO word

order, whereas

the

eastern

Uralic anguages

ave

SOV.

Simi-

larly,

the

eastern

ndo-European

languages

tend

to

show

SOV word

order.

(See

Drver

1998

or

more

on word

ordcr in

the l in-

guages

f Europe.)

(vi)

European

languages

end

to have

just

one

converb

-

Art.

83)

(cf.

Nedjalkov

1998).

For instance,

Romance

anguages

have

the

gerundio

gt

ronrlrf,

English

has

the

-lng-form,

and

Slavicand

Balkan

anguages

ave

heir

adverbial participle.

The

Celtic languages

n

the westcompletelyack sucha fonn, and the

languages

east

of

SAE tend

to have

more

than

one

converb.

Otherwise

he core

Euro-

pean

languages

end

to have

adverbial

con-

junctions

('

Art.63)

to

make

adverbial

clauses.

ccording

o

Kortmann

(1997:

344\,

they

have

"a

large,

semantically

highly

dif-

ferentiated

nventory

of free

adverbial

sub-

ordinators placed

n

clause-initial

position".

More

generally,

hey

end to have

inite

rather

than

non-finite

subordinate

strategies

(r

Art.

100),

hough

a multi-purpose

nfinitive

usually

exists

(except

lbl

the Balkan

lan-

guages).

(vii) European anguages suallyhavea spe-

cial construction

for negative

coordination,

e.

g.

English

neitlrcr

A nor B,

Italian

ni A

nt

.8,

Russian

i

A ni,B,

Dutch

nochA

nochB,

Hungarian

sem

A sem

B. Again,

no world-

wide

study

has

been

published,

ut

such a

negative

coordinating

construction

is

rarely

reported

rom

languages

utside

Europe

(cf'.

Haspelmath

o

appear).

(viii)

SAE languages

ave

a large

number

of

characteristic roperties

n the

area

of

phasal

adverbials expressions

ike alread1,,

till, no

longer,

not

yet) (van

der

Auwera 1998b).

These

are rather

well

documented.

ut for

the

Typological

characterization

f language

amiliesand linguistic

areas

detail I

have to refer

the reader

o van der

Auwera's horough study.

(ix)

"Preterite

decay":

the

loss

of

the

old

preterite

and its replacement

by the former

present

perfect.

This

is a

change that

oc-

curred

n

the

last

millenium

n French,

Ger-

man and northern

Italian,

as well

as n some

other adjacent

European

anguages

cf.

Thie-

roff

2000: 285).

Its distribution

is far nar-

rower

than

that of the

other Europeanisms,

but it

is the

only feature

of those

studiedby

Thieroff

whose geography

comes close

to

Standard

Average

European

(cf.

also

Abra-

ham 1999).

Quite

a l-ew

additional features

have

been

mentioned

n

the earlier

iterature

as charac-

teristic

of SAE, but

earlier

authors have

sometimes

eglected

o make

sure hat

a

pro-

posed

Europeanism

s not

also

common else-

where

n the world.

Most

of Whorf's

original

examples

f

SAE features

seem o

be of this

kind.

For instance,

he notes

hat in

contrast

to

SAE, Hopi lacks

imaginary

plurals" (such

as

'ten

days',

according

o

Whorf a

"meta-

phorical

aggregate").

But

of course,

we have

no

evidence hat

such

plurals

of

time-span

nouns

are n

any way

characteristic

f Euro-

pean

anguages.

t

may well

be that

they are

common throughout the world. (To give

Whorf

his

due, t

must

be added

hat he was

not interested

n demonstrating

that

SAE

Ianguages

orm

a

Sprachbund.

He

just

used

this

term as

a convenient

abbreviation for

"English

and

other European

languages

likely

to

be

known

to the reader",

without

necessarily

mplying

that

these anguages

re

an

exclusive lub.)

4.

Degrees

of membership

in

SAE

Membership

n

a

Sprachburrds

typically

a

matter

of degree.

Usually

there s

a core of

languageshat clearly belong o the Sprach-

bund, and

a

periphery

of surrounding

lan-

guages

hat

share features

of the linguistic

area o a

greater

or lesser

xtent.

In

order

to

quantify

the degrees

f mem-

bership

n

SAE, a

simple

procedure

suggests

itself

that was

first

applied o

areal ypology

by van

der Auwera

(1998a).

n addition

to

individual

maps

n which

the ines

denote so-

glosses

as

n

Maps

107.1-12),

e

cancom-

bine

ditlerent

features

n

a single map

and

show

the nu

standard average european

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