Computational Typology

Abstract:Typology is a subfield of linguistics that focuses on the study and classification of languages based on their structural features. Unlike genealogical classification, which examines the historical relationships between languages, typology seeks to understand the diversity of human languages by identifying common properties and patterns, known as universals. In recent years, computational methods have played an increasingly important role in typological research, enabling the analysis of large-scale linguistic data and the testing of hypotheses about language structure and evolution. This article provides an illustration of the benefits of computational statistical modeling in typology.

21 pages, 6 figures, 9 tables. Version 2 (October 2026): revised chapter, code and data. Replication material: this https URL (tag v2)

Computation and Language (cs.CL); Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE)

arXiv:2504.15642 [cs.CL]

(or arXiv:2504.15642v3 [cs.CL] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.15642 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

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