Preface [zu: Linguistic Typology ; 11 (2007)]

Abstract

After ten years of regular journal fare, this issue of LT is special. To commemorate the journal's decennial, it collects the responses to an invitation (or, in some cases, request) from LT's Editorial Board to reflect on where typology stands and where it is, or ought to be, going. These were the questions we asked two dozen or so prospective reflectors ALT members all, and connected with LT in one way or another, but sampled for expected diversity rather than unity in how they would be answering our questions (and free rein was given anyhow as regards style):Has headway been made in linguistic typology or have we been going round in circles?What has most memorably been found out in typology, and what is there yet to discover (the lexicon, semantics, phonology, )?What state is typology in now, intellectually and academically, and where will it go in future?What indeed is typology and what is not? What is, or ought to be, special about the aims, methods, and results of typology, in relation to other types of linguistic pursuits such as: grammar and dictionary writing; field linguistics; historical linguistics, deep and shallow time; sociolinguistics; psycho- and neurolinguistics; language acquisition/learning and teaching; computational linguistics; well, theoretical linguistics; ?How does, or should, typology interact with the world at large, inhabited among others by cognitive/social/physical/evolutionary anthropologists, population scientists, archaeologists, cognitive neuroscientists, statisticians, language learners, school children, the reading and/or viewing public?How well is LT serving the field as a forum? Is LT's remit well- or ill-defined, cogent or futile? Is LT a faithful or distorting mirror of scholarly goings-on in typology? Does LT breed complacency and stagnation or provoke thought and stir into action? Published in LT, does work have the resonance it ought to be getting?