AXIS 2 – Typological and historical linguistics

Since an article by Greenberg (1963), the general idea is that historical linguistics, which studies the diachronic change of languages and the relations between “related” languages, both in the innovations that distinguish them and in the borrowings that bring them together, and typological linguistics, which compares the features of the world’s languages without any “genealogical” inference, are opposed – to complement each other. It is true that areal linguistics, well known at LACITO, had modified this opposition upstream by introducing the idea of socio-political environments favorable to exchanges across linguistic borders, at a level that is not necessarily that of the trait.

• • • • Panchronic Phonology (until the End of 2011)
      • Indefinites (2014-2016)
      • Description and Typology | Problèmes d’analyse et de comparaison des langues (2012-2017) (some parts in French)
      • Terrains, analyse et comparaison des langues (TACOL) (since October 2017, composed of workshops, fusion of “Terrains”& “PACOL” seminars) (some parts in French)
      • Lexical structure: Typology and dynamics (since November 2017, composed of workshops)