Typological Features Template
The Typological Features Template (TFT) can be used as a wiki template. As such it allows you to create your own TFT using the tabular format of the TFT shown below. To work with such a templates might not only be useful for students of linguistics and fieldworkers investigating so far little explored languages, but also for linguists in general and people interested in less-described languages. The TFT covers phonology and morpho-syntax information. Still, the idea is not that all areas must be covered and all fields must be filled in. The templates can be used in a much more exploratory mode.
To start your own TFT create a new TypeCraft wiki page (see Help pages if you need instructions) which you call "Typological Features Template for [your language]" and insert {{subst:Name}} into the page.
The TFT has a typological orientation, and can be used with profit by everyone who had basic linguistic training. Non-native speakers of the described language and fieldworkers may want to work with the template because it provides a first indication of the scope of the phenomena that could (and perhaps should be) studied. The templates also might be useful for native speakers of a minority or less-studied language in order to describing their native languages in linguistic terms.
The TFT has a tabular form, which indicates that the expected descriptions are intended to be rather short. The idea is that a filled template gives an easy-to-grasp, first overview over a language. For TFTs on this wiki, it is quite important that they contains references to ongoing work on the described language, or, if available, literature that can be useful to readers interested in a more in-depth view.
Essential is that certain claims made about the described language are supported by annotated data from the TypeCraft database.
Finally, the format of the TFT is not written in stone. It is very much work in progress. We are thankful for suggestions. Please use the discussion page for this page to leave your comment.
You will find quite a few templates that have been started, but then were abandoned on TypeCraft. Feel free to adopt templates that have not been signed by other TypeCraft users. Please sign your contribution, or leave your info on the discussion pages of these templates.
| Feature | Description |
| Phonological Features | The following fields describe the sound inventory of [your language] |
| Vowel inventory | |
| Vowel harmony | |
| Consonant inventory | |
| Tone | Note: If your language is a tone language describe which tones are used; indicate whether your language uses lexical or grammatical tone. |
| Syllable Structure | |
| Morpho-syntactic Features | In the following fields describe morpho-syntactic parameters of [your language] |
| Basic morphological properties | Note: Specify whether your language is an isolating language (not (or nearly not) making use of morphology, agglutinative, such as the Bantu languages of Africa, or synthetic, such as the Saami languages of Scandinavia, or polysynthetic such as Greenlandic. |
| Basic morpho-syntactic properties | Note Linguists have distinguished between head- and dependent-marking languages. Semitic languages are head marking languages; it is the head of the noun phrases that needs to have a special form when followed by a dependent noun; in the Germanic languages it is the head of the verb phrase that expresses person-number features of its subject. Grammatical dependencies may also be expressed on the dependent noun phrases in the form of case. A language thus can be both, head- and dependent-marking, depending on the category of speech and or the type of feature expressed. Head- and dependent marking is an overarching morpho-syntactic feature which can be described here. |
| Nominal Phrases | The following fields describe morpho-syntactic properties of nominal constituents |
| syntactic structure | |
| nominal modification | |
| nominal specification | Note Does your language have determiners, demonstratives (deixis), numerals, quantifiers? Are there affixes expressing reference, deixis? |
| possession | |
| pronominal system | |
| Verbal Phrases | The following fields describe some of the basic morpho-syntactic properties of verbal constituents |
| word order | |
| Tense-Aspect-Mood | |
| Infinitival form(s) | |
| Verbal constructions (Valency) | |
| Adpositions | Note In addtion to indicating whether your languages makes use of prepositions or postpositions, you might want to indicate whether your language has spatial nouns? Does your language use adpositions or particles to indicate grammatical relations between the verb and a nominal argument? |
| Complementation | |
| Special Properties | |
| Short Bibliography |