This project conducts typological research on 9 languages. Four themes a year, three years in all, has been carried. The followings are the list and summary of the three-year-conducted research respectively.
1st year: parts of speech/word classes, ...
This project conducts typological research on 9 languages. Four themes a year, three years in all, has been carried. The followings are the list and summary of the three-year-conducted research respectively.
1st year: parts of speech/word classes, sentence types, word order,
basic sentence patterns
2nd year: case, adposition; preposition/postposition, connective expressions,
reflexive constructions
3rd year: tense and aspect, mood and modality, auxiliaries, voice
Depending on the language, parts of speech distinction or development is quite different. Some languages have well distinct ones, others have poorly distinct ones. The basic distinction of parts of speech is between nouns and verbs. In some languages, this distinction is also not clear. Sentence types are interrogative, negative, and imperative sentences. Seven different ways to make interrogative sentences are found; intonation, special particles, auxiliaries, word order, verb-endings, disjunctive construction, and an interrogative. Regarding three factors such as subject(S), verb(V), and object(O), there are three word orders: SVO, SOV, VSO. The word orders in noun phrase and verb phrases are the next themes in this area. Every language has its own basic sentence patterns. Some languages have fluent reflexive systems and others not. While Korean has double subject constructions, European languages do not. Distinctions of case mark the structural and semantic function of noun phrases within sentences. There are three ways to mark case: word order, change of endings, adpositions. Typologically, language has 12 case systems. Among them, nominative, objective, and possessive are the most developed ones. The adposition includes prepositions and postpositions. They are derived from adverbs, verbs, and nouns. One adposition tends to have various functions. Originally, each adposition had its own concrete meaning, but as time goes by, it extended to have abstract meaning. Connective expressionsare language universals and have two ways; coordination and subordination. In English, we have a clearly distinguished word class. However, Korean has different connective systems. While German, French and Slavics have fluent reflexive forms, English is a non-reflexive language. Passive voice can be shown using these reflexive forms. For making reflexive forms, some languages use nouns, pronouns and adverbs. Tense locates the event in time. Aspect characterizes the internal temporal structure of the event. Tense can be divided into binary system or tertiary system. Russian is the most aspect-prominent language, and German is the most tense-prominent language. Mood and modality describe the actuality of the event in terms such as possibility, necessity, or desirability. There are four types of judgment that are common in languages: epistemic, evidential, deontic modality, dynamic modality. In many languages, one auxiliary can express one or two modalities simultaneously. Auxiliaries are developed from main verbs and then their original meanings have gradually faded away. Some languages need special auxiliaries, others don't. The origins of auxiliaries are mostly universal. Passive voice generally undergoes word order, case-marking, and changing of verb forms. To express passive, various ways are needed. Depending on its function, passives are divided into personal passive, impersonal passive, and middle voice.