1. Языковые универсалии и их классификация.

A linguistic universal is a pattern that occurs systematically across natural languages, potentially
true for all of them. For example, All languages have nouns and verbs, or If a language is
spoken, it has consonants and vowels.

Extralinguistic universals are universals concerning a particular sign system, as opposed to the
sign system of a language.

Classification

* VSO = Verb Subject Object

* SVO = Subject Verb Object

1) 1 вариант кратко

1. Absolute universals – without exceptions (there are no languages without pronouns)

2. Statistic universals – true for most languages (most languages have more than 2 vowels;
exception – aboriginal Australian, Abkhazian)

3. Frequentalities – phenomena or qualities which are rather frequent in different languages

(several types of declension)

1. Deductive universal – theoretical supposition that some quality is likely to exist in all
language (every language uses both vowels and consonants).

2. Inductive universal – quality revealed in all known languages through analysis (every
language has pronouns)

1. Common universal – statement concerning one phenomenon in language (all language use
modal meanings)

2. Implicational universal – a dependance between 2 related phenomena (if musical stress is used
in some language, it lacks the opposition “soft-hard” consonants)

1. Synchronic universal – describe a language at one stage of its development

2. Diachronic universal – describe the development of language (OE ceosan /k/ – ME chesan /ʧ/
– NE – choose /ʧ/)

1. Phonological universal – e.g. languages with 2 vowels

2. Lexical universal – e.g. in all languages there are words denoting objects, actions and qualities

3. Morphological universal – e.g. if in some language there are only 2 tenses, they are present
and past

4. Syntactic universal – e.g. if a language uses flection on a wide scale, it has free word order

2) 2 вариант полнее
First, we must make a basic distinction between absolute universals and statistical universals.
Absolute universals (All languages have vowels and consonants) refer to properties found in all
languages, while statistical universals (Subjects tend strongly to precede objects) reflect
important trends that are found in a predominant part of the languages of the world, but not
necessarily in all. It is often difficult to ascertain what constitutes absolute universals, since we
do not have access to reliable information about all languages in the world. For instance, while it
is very likely that all languages of the world make a distinction between vowels and consonants,
we cannot a priori rule out the possibility of a language with only vowels or only consonants. On
the other hand, we know for certain that some universals are only statistical. For instance, in the
vast majority of languages, the subject usually precedes the object, but there are also languages
where this is not the case, and even languages where the distinction between subject and object
does not apply. Also in contrast to absolute universals are tendencies, statements that may not be
true for all languages but nevertheless are far too common to be the result of chance.[1] They also
have implicational and non-implicational forms. An example of the latter would be The vast
majority of languages have nasal consonants.[2] However, most tendencies, like their universal
counterparts, are implicational. For example, With overwhelmingly greater-than-chance
frequency, languages with normal SOV order are postpositional. Strictly speaking, a tendency is
not a kind of universal, but exceptions to most statements called universals can be found. For
example, Latin is an SOV language with prepositions. Often it turns out that these exceptional
languages are undergoing a shift from one type of language to another. In the case of Latin, its
descendant Romance languages switched to SVO, which is a much more common order among
prepositional languages.

Language universals may also be generalizations about properties of just a small selection of
languages, so-called implicational universals (If a language has voiced fricatives, it also has
unvoiced fricatives, but not necessarily the other way round), which state that if a language has
property A, then it also has property B, but not necessarily the other way round. For instance, if a
language has voiced fricatives like [v] and [z] (property A), it also has unvoiced fricatives like [f]
and [s] (property B). The reverse is not true, since many languages have unvoiced fricatives, but
not voiced fricatives. For an implicational universal to make sense, there must also exist
languages that have neither property A nor property B. Indeed, some languages lack both voiced
and unvoiced fricatives. To our knowledge, the correlation between unvoiced and voiced
fricatives is an absolute implicational universal. But there are also examples of statistical
implicational universals. For instance, if a language typically places the main verb between the
subject and the object, as in English The cat caught the mouse, its relative clauses usually follow
the noun they modify, as in the cat that caught the mouse, but Chinese and a few other languages
are exceptions, placing relative clauses before the noun they modify. Non-implicational
universals are for example the absolute universals which were discussed in the previous chapter.

Universals may also be bidirectional or unidirectional. In a bidirectional universal two features

each imply the existence of each other. For example, languages with postpositions usually have
SOV order, and likewise SOV languages usually have postpositions. The implication works both
ways, and thus the universal is bidirectional. By contrast, in a unidirectional universal the
implication works only one way. Languages that place relative clauses before the noun they
modify again usually have SOV order, so pre-nominal relative clauses imply SOV. On the other
hand, SOV languages worldwide show little preference for pre-nominal relative clauses, and thus
SOV implies little about the order of relative clauses. As the implication works only one way,
the proposed universal is a unidirectional one.

· Phonological, grammatical and lexical universals;

Phonological: All languages have voiceless stops.

Grammatical: in languages with prepositions, the genitive almost always follows the head noun,
and in languages with postpositions, it almost always precedes it. E.g. крыши домов

Lexical: Most lexical universals are approximate rather than precise. For instance, it has often
been said that all languages have the concepts of 'black' and 'white', but this is only true in an
approximate sense. In languages with few colour terms, such as the Indonesian language Lani,
which only has two, the word for 'black' also covers dark and cool colours like green and blue,
while the word for 'white' also covers light and warm colours like red and yellow. Thus, English
black and Lani mili are only approximate equivalents, and the same is true of English white and
Lani laambu.

· Synchronical and diachronical universals;

Synchronical: in many languages we can find the system of cases, from 8 cases in Marathi
(язык маратхи) in Central India till 2 cases in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.

Diachronical: [k] > [ʧ] In old Russia [к] > [ч] before the front vowel [э] – пеку – печешь,
крепкий – крепче. In English – OE ċēosan – ME chesen – E choose

· Language and speech universals;

Language: Language universals are statements that are true of all languages, for example: “all
languages have stop consonants”.

Speech:

Deductive universal – theoretical supposition that some quality is likely to exist in all language
(every language uses both vowels and consonants).

Inductive universal – quality revealed in all known languages through analysis (every language
has pronouns

Universals extralinguistic and linguistic proper;

Extralinguistic: a vocal-auditory channel is a channel for any type of language commucation,

opposed to animal commucation that is only voice (?)

Linguistic: in the majority of countries we can find present tense form.

2. Методы типологического анализа. - Methods of typological analysis

1 вариант

a) Glottochronological method
Glottochronology – a method introduced by historical comparative linguistics. It helps to define
the degree of affinity (степень родства) of genetically related languages. It’s done on the lexical
level. It was used to identify the time of divergence. This method was described by M. Swadesh
who used the analogy with physics. Half-life period. Swadesh used his method also to
distinguish between a language and a dialect. Any two speech variations can be called different
languages if they started to diverge at least 5 centuries ago or even earlier. If it happened later,
these variations can be called dialects or variants. Glottochronology describes the degree of
affinity of languages through the word stock. Swadesh proved that in the vocabulary of any
language there exists a basic most ancient native layer. Swadesh compared several languages
(English, Spanish, German, Russian, etc.) and compiled a word list of basic lexicon for these
languages. Then he compared these word lists for every couple of studied languages. According
to this word list, Russian and English have 11 words which demonstrate formal isomorphism,
and so this is the percentage of affinity between Russian and English on the lexical level. Later
this method was developed by a Russian linguist Yakhontov who introduced a scale of affinity
between languages in the same branches or groups. For example, in the Slavic branch. This scale
illustrates the approximate time of divergence.

b) Typological indexation

It’s a specialized typological method created by Joseph Greenberg. It’s also called statistic,
because mathematical proportions are used. Greenberg analyzed a lot of text fragments each
consisting of 100 words. After that he singled out several qualities which are important for all
language types. But it’s already known that some of the qualities are more important for
synthetic language, others for analytic, etc. Then these qualities were described by different
indexes. The first index is called “index of syntheticism”, which is an average number of
morphemes in a word (English – 1,68, Russian – 2,33). If index is less than 2, the language is
analytical. If it’s more than 2, it’s synthetic.

The second index describes boarders between morphemes. It’s expressed through the model A:J
(A – cases of agglutination, J – number of morphemic boarders (junctures) in an average 100-
words’ text). Two possible types of boarders are agglutination and fusion. In agglutination there
are no formal changes between morphemes, the juncture is evident (re+gain). Fusion is
accompanied by phonetic change in the juncture, because morphemes overlap and fuse with one
another (quest+tion). High indexes of agglutination are typical of Turkic languages, but this
phenomenon is also present in flective languages. On the basis of comparison the scale of
agglutination is already compiled.

Besides, Greenberg singled out indexes which describe tendencies in word building. Here we
have three indexes:

- index of word composition – proportion “number of roots to number of words”

- Index of prefixation – proportion “number of prefixes to number of words”

- Index of suffixation – proportion “number of suffixes to number of words”

Indexes also describe syntactic relations between words:

- Index of isolation – proportion “number of relations expressed by word order to the number of
words in the text” (cold water)

- Index of concord – proportion “number of relations expressed by concord to the number of

words in the text” (those boys)

2 вариант

The main method of typological studies is the comparative method. Comparative linguistics
applies this method as well, but in that trend the elements compared are similar materially, which
allows the scholar to establish their genetic affinity. Typology compares elements that are similar
functionally. e.g. The English, Russian and Turkish languages have affixes which form nouns
with the meaning "the doer of an action". These are the English affix -er, the Turkish one -ci, the
Russian -тель. They consist of different phonemes and have no common origin, but they have
the same function in the language. So they can be studied in comparative typology. Elements
compared must have some common, similar (isomorphic) features in different languages. e.g.
Different languages have their own case systems with peculiar case meanings. Isomorphic
characteristics serve as a basis for typological classification. They are called typological
constants. One of typological constants is existence of the category of case. Using it, we can
classify all languages into two groups: the ones having a system of declension and the ones
lacking it. Difference between languages may lie not only in the fact of existence/non-existence
of some element, but also in the place of the element within its microsystem. When two
languages are compared one of them serves as a prototype. For language students such a
prototype is usually their native language. But the description of the English language by
Russian-speaking students will differ considerably from the one made by French-speaking
students. We can't get a really scientific, objective description in this way. A "neutral" language
must be found, which can serve as a prototype for any language. Boris Andreevitch Uspenskiy
suggested using isolating languages as prototypes because their structure is the simplest, and
features isomorphic for all languages are explicit and distinct in them. But other scholars argue
that the structure of isolating languages is not as simple as it seems, and some artificial prototype
language must be constructed for the purposes of typological comparison. Typological
characteristics of a language revealed with the help of comparison of this language to a prototype
language are correlated. They form a system. According to Georgiy Pavlovitch MeFnikov some
elements and phenomena of this system occupy the leading position in it and the speaker
subconsciously chooses such language means which are in harmony with the leading tendency.
This leading grammatical tendency was given the name of determinant. e.g. The Semitic
languages (according to G.P. Mefnikov) have a tendency to grammaticalization. That's why
verbal meaning is prevalent in word roots, consonants are used for expressing lexical meaning
and vowels are used for expressing grammatical meanings. The Chinese language has a tendency
to lexicalization. It doesn't express explicitly the information which is clear from the context
(plurality is expressed only when not clear from the context). Differences between languages can
be quantified. A quantitative method was introduced by Joseph Greenberg. It is called the
method of typological indices. The most typical approach presupposes comparing languages
"level by level", i.e. the phonological level of one language is compared to the phonological level
of the other, then the morphological, the syntactical, the lexical levels are compared. However,
similar functions can be performed by elements of different levels in different languages, e.g. I
don't lend my books to anyone (phonology) Я не даю моих книг никому (vocabulary) I don't
lend my books to anyone (phonology) Я не даю моих книг кому попало, (vocabulary) Вы
знаете, где магазин, (phonology) You know where the shop is. (Syntax) Вы знаете, где
магазин? (phonology) Do you know where the shop is?

3. Типологические константы в подсистемах согласных английского и русского

языков.

The notion typological constance denotes the criteria of description and classification.
Phonological systems of different languages differ much. Some languages have a balanced
proportion of vowels and consonants. That’s why they are called vocalic languages. If a
language has many more consonants, it’s a consonantic language.

Typological constance in the system of consonants

Comparison of consonants in two languages shows that in Russian there are 35 phonemes,
whereas in English there are only 20. In Russian this great number of consonants is explained by
the existence of correlation between hard and soft consonants. Both Russian and English have
plosives, fricatives, sonorants and affricates. In English 6 articulatory zones are used: labial,
interdental, alveolar, media-lingual, back-lingual, glottal. In Russian interdental and glottal zones
are not used, but instead of the alveolar the dental zone is used in Russian.

Neutralization in Russian is a common phenomenon. The opposition between voiced and

invoiced consonants disappears in the final position (кров, сад). The same happen in the inter-
morphemic position. Interleximic neutralization.

Neutralization of this kind is not typical in English, which can be a source of mistakes for
Russian speakers.

Another peculiar feature of Russian concerns historical sound alternation. In Russian we have
many patterns of alternation (г-ж, к-ч, х-ш, з-ж, с-ш, д-ж, т-ч). It’s interesting that in Russian
such alternation occurs both in different forms of the same word and in different words. In
English alternation also exists, but the number of patterns is not so wide and it exists only in
different words (d-ʒ, z-ʒ, s-ʃ, t-ʃ).

As for distribution of phonemes, ŋ never occurs in the initial position, and h can’t occur in the
final position. In Russian voiced consonants never occur in the final position and soft consonants
can’t be used before vowel ы.

Among Slavic languages Russian and Polish are consonantic. This doesn’t depend on the genetic
nature of language, because in Slavic languages there are vocalic languages as well. For
example, in Slovenian (21-16) and Serb-Croatian (24-18). English also belongs to vocalic type.
Besides, when we discuss phonology of languages, we should pay attention to such qualitative
and quantitative features which show specificity of this language. Such features are called
constances:

1. Deals with the number of phonemes and their nomenclature.

2. Specification of a language. It’s the structure of the phonological system on the whole and
types of oppositions which exist in this language.

3. The number of phonological correlations.

A correlation is such an opposition which has only one distinctive feature. In Russian these are
correlation of hard and soft consonants.

4. Neutralization of phonological oppositions.

In different languages neutralization takes place in different positions or it can be not typical of
the language at all, so it can be a criterion for comparison. In Russian, as well as in German,
consonants are neutralized at the end of the word.

5. Distribution of phonemes and their frequency of occurrence.

In English the most frequent phonemes are s, z, d, t, θ, and among vowels schwa vowel. In
Russian schwa vowel is also popular for the same reason and plurality explains the popularity of
vowels ы, а, и.

6. The function of phonemes in the word.

There are languages which have an obvious distribution of such functions. For example, in
Semitic languages mostly consonants are responsible for the expression of lexical meaning.
Vowels, on the contrary, are used only in grammatical morphemes. But in the Turkic languages,
vice versa, vowels are free from grammatical functions and mainly express lexical meaning. In
English and Russian this distribution is not distinct, as both types of meaning can be expressed
by vowels and by consonants (дог, бог, рог).

These 6 criteria are principles of typological analysis of any two or more languages.

8. Словосложение.

Word composition – building a word by combining 2 or more stems. As a result, we get a

compound or a composite word. There are 4 principles of comparison:

- number of stems (2-,3-stem words)

- position of the main element (pre- or postposition)

- way of linking elements

Elements can be united by adjoinment (амперметр, контрнаступление; snowball, postcard),

linking morpheme (листопад, землеустроитель; statesman, salesgirl), linking functional words
(иван-да-марья, мать-и-мачеха; son-in-law, hide-and-seek)

- type of syntactic link between elements

Coordination (иван-да-марья, мать-и-мачеха; agent-distributor, hide-and-seek), predicative
(листопад; sunrise, forget-me-not), subordinative – attributive (чернозем; redbreast, milkman)
and objective (конокрад, водовоз; turn-screw).

9. Типология значения.

If we compare the meaning of equivalent words in two languages, we may face 4 possible
situations. The first situation is absolute equivalence. In this case the scope of meanings of two
words in different languages is absolutely the same (chess-шахматы, telegram-телеграмма).
Most words correspond to partial equivalence and in this case either some Russian word can be
wider in meaning (лестница – ladder, stairs, staircase, fire-escape). In the third situation the
English word is wider (put – поставить, положить, повесить, etc.) Prof. Barkhudarov speaks
about two types of partial equivalence – inclusion and crossing. In case of crossing both words
have both similar and some specific meanings which don’t coincide (голос-voice). Relations of
the fourth type are called linguistic lacunas when the word exists only in one language (fortnight
– две недели, hosiery - чулочно-носочные изделия, boiling water – кипяток). The linguistic
reason is connected with different worldviews in different language cultures, because very often
some existing objects or qualities remain unnamed in language. Sometimes words seem to have
equivalents, but actually have different meanings. This phenomenon of FIF (false interpreter’s
friend) exists in many languages.

Languages also differ in semantic structures. Some languages prefer words of general semantics,
others use words with more specialized meaning. Analytical languages mostly use words with
wider lexical meaning and the word is specified by the environment. In English the idea of
motion is usually expressed by words come and go, but the type of motion is not specified in
these verbs. In the same way there are nouns that in English can correspond to a great number of
Russian words with more specific meaning.

Lexical meaning is defined by the context which can actualize it for every polysemantic word.
Typology differentiates three types of context:

1) lexical

The meaning of polysemantic word is actualized due to its immediate neighbour (dim idea – dim
light)

2) syntactic

The meaning is clear due to some syntactic construction it’s used in (to make smb do smth, to
take care of)

3) lexico-syntactic – mixed

In this case both lexical combinability and the syntactic structure are equally important (the sun
sets in the west). Here the verb to set is used in this sense (intransitive). He sets potatoes every
year. - transitive (Сажать картошку). A peasant woman is setting her hens.

(The sun sets in the West. – He is setting potatoes.)

All types of context should be taken into consideration, because they make the system of lexical
units more complex and their expressive potential more powerful.

It’s extremely important to take the context into consideration because, for example, in English
and Russian there are lots of words having just almost identical meaning (of course, we should
bear in mind, that most of words in English and Russian cannot be called total equivalents), but
still there are words which are usually taught and perceived as equivalents, but when realized in
the context, a word may acquire a new semantic component which is not typical for its
equivalent in the TL. Kozlova offers an example of a lexeme happiness, and she says that in a
certain context this lexeme may realize another semantic component, that is satisfaction: as we
know, the Russian lexeme счастье does not have such a component in its structure. This
component may be realized, for example, in a phrase “are you happy about my answer?” or “I
am happy with my life.” Similar differences can be found between other lexemes such as friend
and друг, freedom and свобода, conscience- совесть, mind-ум and etc.

So the meaning of a lexeme should always be viewed with respect to its context, because in
practice they are inseparable.

10. Категория падежа в русском и английском языках.

More controversial, because the number of cases various from 2 to 15. In some lang-s there are
no cases. The number of cases depends on the number of factors. In Rus. 6 cases and they show
the relations btw case form in nominative and accusative in plural (дом’а – ‘дома)

In Eng. prepositions are used because there’s only one distinction btw. noun and possessive.
Every case form has its definite syntactical function. In Rus. only in nominative case are used in
subjects. In Eng. nouns in possessive case have the function of attribute. Some grammarians
consider that there are no case flexions at all.Nouns in the possessive case in Eng. have the
following characteristic features as nouns in nominative case may be used with articles a puple’s
book - the puple’s book with adj. (a good pupil’s book) with numeral (2 puples’ book)

But nouns with the possessive and nominative case have different functions. Nouns in genitive
case may have ‘of’ (дом брата).In Eng. nouns in the possessive case have: - property opposition
(jone’s book), - private or social relations (jone’s wife), - the origin (the moon’s light), - relation
btw a whole and a part (jone’s hand), - a characteristic feature of smth (mother’s care), - time
distance relations.Relations expressed by nouns in the possessive case may be expressed by a
noun with prep ‘of’.

They are synonyms but difference is in style. Combinations with ‘of’ phrase are more official
and may have some additional meanings: - a characteristic feature (a woman of a strong will), -
material (a dress of wool), - a part of smth (crowd of people).Posessive case in Eng. has 2 forms:
dependant (tom’s falt), - absolute/ independent(Jone’s was a brilliant idea).

In Rus. dative case has the meaning of an action directed at an object. (купил детям).Accusative
case in Rus denotes a direct object (писал письмо).Instrumental case denotes an instrument with
the help of which is performed (писать карандашем). In Eng. preposition ‘by’ is used.
Prepositional case in Rus has meaning of space (собрались в аудитории).
This category in English is represented by opposition nominative possessive – a girl-girls, in
Russian it is represented by the system of six cases –
nominative,genitive,dative,accusative,instrumental and prepositional. The category of case
shows the relations between words in a sentence. The number of cases is different in different
languages. Some languages have no cases at all. The number of cases varies from two till 15 in
Finish. It depends upon the structure of the language. In Russian in plural number nouns have
five different forms, because nominative and accusative coincide in form – дома,дома.
Sometime genitive and accusative coincide in form – учеников, учеников. But incite of their
likeness in form they have different lexical and syntactical functions. When case forms coincide
then prepositions and the context help to understand the meaning у двери, к двеи, на двери.
Prepositions are especially important in English because the majority of nouns has no case
distinctions and only prepositions show the relations between words – at the door, to the door,
near the door. Every case of a noun has its definite syntactical function. The subject of the
sentence in Russian is expressed by nominative case and other members of the sentence may be
expressed by other case forms. In English the majority of linguists distinguish two case forms.
Possessive case in English differs from genitive in Russian, by the fact that it is characteristic of
nouns denoting living beings and nouns denoting time and distance – a minutes talk. A miles
distance. A noun in the possessive case in English has the same characteristic features as a noun
in nominative case. It may be used with articles, a pupil’s book, with adjectives a good pupil’s
book., numerals two pupils’ book, and pronouns his pupil’s book. Nouns in the possessive and
nominative case are used in different syntactical functions. Nouns in the possessive case are
usually used in the function of an attribute, but in Russian nouns in genitive case may also be
used in combination with another noun and in such cases they have the function of an attribute. –
дом отца. Приезд брата. In English in such cases preposition OF is generally used. The house
of my father, the arrival of my brother. In Russian genitive case may be used after adjectives in
comparative degree like сильнее бури, красивее принцессы. In English the meaning of the
possessive case is more limited than this of the nominative case. It has the following meanings -
1.property or possession like John’s book, 2.social relations (private) like John’s wife. 3. The
origin of something the moon’s light. 4. The relation between a whole and a part – like – John’s
head. 5. Characteristic feature of something – mother’s care. 6 time or distance – a minute’s
walk. Relations expresses by possessive case may be expressed by a noun with preposition OF
but they are synonyms only in some context. Constructions with OF may be used with all nouns
in English, besides constructions with OF may have some additional meanings to those which
have been mentioned. They are:

1. Characteristic feature of something : a man of strong will.

2. Material : a dress of silk

3. A part of something : a group of students.

Constructions with OF are more official than possessive case. But the possessive case in English
is divided into possessive case dependent and independent (absolute genitive). John’s was a good
idea. In such cases possessive pronouns may substitute a noun like his was a good idea.

Summary.

1. From lexical point of view nouns in English and Russian denote objects or things.
2. From the syntactical point of view in both languages they are used as subjects, objects or
predicates.

3. A characteristic feature of nouns in Russian is existence of special suffixes with

individual сoloring like братец, братишка, девушка. Девица. Which absolutely
impossible in English except one suffix – ing, et. Book-bookle, duck-duckling

4. Both languages have grammatical categories of number and case, but their structure is
different. Besides English nouns are characterized by the category of determination
which is expressed with the help of articles. In both languages the category of gender is
expressed lexically. And in Russian it also expressed morphologically.