ABSTRACT
The preceding chapters have been concerned mainly with discussion and exemplification of what may broadly be characterized as Greenbergian linguistic typology. This type of linguistic typology is represented either by linguists who follow directly in the footsteps of Joseph H. Greenberg, or by linguists who endorse or adopt his philosophy of linguistic typology in carrying out their own research. As it happens, the majority of the leading figures in Greenbergian linguistic typology – including Greenberg himself – are or were based in the US. For this very reason Greenbergian linguistic typology is often also referred to by non-American outsiders (e.g. Nedjalkov and Litvinov 1995: 255) as American linguistic typology. But this should never be understood to imply that Greenbergian linguistic typology is practised only in the US. Nothing is further from the truth. There are a sizeable number of linguists elsewhere in the world whose work may suitably be categorized as Greenbergian. In Europe, however, the situation actually is more complicated than in the rest of the world in that in addition to linguists who have embraced Greenbergian linguistic typology there are linguists who have developed their own schools of linguistic typology based on the same European tradition of linguistic typology as that in which Greenbergian linguistic typology has its roots (cf. 1.6). It is probably not unfair to say that most of such European schools of linguistic typology – especially those in the former East European Communist bloc – have for most of their existence evolved in more or less complete isolation. They had scarcely made contact with one another or with their American counterparts until very recently (or vice versa), for instance. In this respect alone these European schools may be said to be on a par with Greenbergian linguistic typology.
