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Comparative typology is one of the branches of General Linguistics, which
studies the systems of languages comparatively,
also finds common laws of
languages and establishes differences and
similarities between them.Moreover, due to
David Crystal’s book “Dictionary of Linguistics
and Phonetics”, Comparative Typology is
explained in this way: “A branch of linguistics
which studies thestructural similarities between
languages,
regardlessof their history, as part of
an
attempt
to
establisha
satisfactory
classification
or
typology
oflanguages.
Typological
comparison
is
thus
distinguishedfrom the historical comparison
oflanguages […] and its groupings may not
coincidewith those set up by the historical
method”.
The most popular definition of the subject matter seems to be
“ComparativeTypology” is a branch of General Linguistics, field of astudy aiming
at identifying such similarities and distinctive features
of languages that do not
depend on genetic origin or influence of languages to one another. Typology
strives to identify and look at the most significant features that affect other spheres
of language systems, e.g. the way of thejunction of meaningful parts of the word or
the so-called structure of the sentence in the language". Typological studies base
on materials of representative sampling from many world languages so that the
findings and conclusions made on the results of such analysis can be applied to the
entire majority of languages (in cases of language universals).
Comparative typology shows special interest in the so-called exotic or non-
studied languages, e.g. languages of ethnicities of South-East Asia, Africa, Ocean
side or American Indian tribes. Still, the data of well-known, expanded and well-
studied languages the similar extent become the subject matter of a typological
study.
Comparative
typology not only systemizes, generalizes and classifies the
facts of language isomorphism and allomorphism but also explains them.
The majority of prestigious linguistic theories have their own typological
agenda aimed at theoretical analysis of structurally different languages, their
location, and genetic origin.
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Nowadays many terms are used for defining this very type of science, such
as
Linguistic Typology
,
Comparative Typology
,
and Contrastive Linguistucs,
Charaxterology
and so on. However, with the help of analyzing historical
background, we will be able to realize the main notion of this branch of
Linguistics.
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