Crosslinguistic Computation and a Rhythm-based Classification of Languages

This paper is in line with the principles of numerical taxonomy and with the program of holistic typology. It integrates the level of phonology with the morphological and syntactical level by correlating metric properties (such as n of phonemes per syllable and n of syllables per clause) with non-metric variables such as the number of morphological cases and adposition order. The study of crosslinguistic patterns of variation results in a division of languages into two main groups, depending on their rhythmical structure. Syllable-timed rhythm, as opposed to stress-timed rhythm, is closely associated with a lower complexity of syllables and a higher number of syllables per clause, with a rather high number of morphological cases and with a tendency to OV order and postpositions. These two fundamental types of language may be viewed as the “idealized” counterparts resulting from the very same and universal pattern of variation. 1 Holistic typology and numerical taxonomy The goal of linguistic typology was from the very beginning a “classification” of languages not from the perspective of genetic and areal relations (Altmann & Lehfeldt (1973: 13)), but a “typological classification” such as the “morphological typology of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries” (Croft (1990: 1)). In Croft the term “classification” is used in the sense of a superordinate concept, and not, as in several other authors, as a neighbouring concept of “typology”. Hempel & Oppenheim, however, suggest using “typological system” as a superordinate concept comprising “ordnende” as opposed to “klassifizierende Form” (Hempel & Oppenheim (1936: 79, 121)). In its modern form, the domain of typology is “the study of cross-linguistic patterns of variation”, says Croft (1990: 43) and attributes its earnest beginnings to Greenberg’s (1966) discovery of implicational universals of morphology and word order. Greenberg’s work was indeed very modern as compared with those recent studies confining themselves to seeking dependencies within syntax, within morphology, or within phonology. But his studies are, from the point of view of a “holistic typology”, instances of a “partial typology”. The program of a “holistic” or “systemic typology” is much older and even more ambitious with its claim to integrate also phonological properties in addition to grammatical properties, i.e. syntactic parameters (such as word order) and morphological parameters. In the words of Georg von der Gabelentz, who introduced the term “typology” into linguistics: “Jede Sprache ist ein System, dessen sämmtliche Theile organisch zusammenhängen und zusammenwirken. /.../ Ich denke an Eigenthümlichkeiten des Wortund des Satzbaues, an die Bevorzugung oder Verwahrlosung gewisser grammatischer Kategorien. Ich kann, ich muss mir aber auch denken, dass alles dies zugleich mit dem Lautwesen irgendwie in Wechselwirkung stehe. /.../ Aber welcher Gewinn wäre es auch, wenn wir einer Sprache auf den Kopf zusagen dürften: Du hast das und das Einzelmerkmal, folglich hast du die und die weiteren Eigenschaften und den und den Gesammtcharakter!” (von der Gabelentz (1901: 481); cited from Plank (1991: