Complementing quantitative typology with behavioral approaches: Evidence for typological universals

Abstract

Two main classes of theory have been advanced to explain correlations between linguistic features like those observed by Greenberg (1963). arbitrary constraint theories argue that certain sets of features patterm together because they have a single underlying cause in the innate language faculty (e.g., the Principles and Parameters program; see Chomsky & Lasnik 1993). functional theories argue that languages are less likely to have certain combinations of properties because, although possible in principle, they are harder to learn or to process, or less suitable for efficient communication (Hockett 1960, Bates & MacWhinney 1989, Hawkins 2004, Dryer 2007, Christiansen & Chater 2008; for further discussion see Hawkins 2007 and Jaeger & Tily 2011). The failure of Dunn, Greenhill, Levinson & Gray (2011) to find systematic feature correlations using their novel computational phylogenetic methods calls into question both of these classes of theory.