LANGUAGE TYPOLOGY 1985 Papers from the Linguistic Typology Symposium, Moscow, 9-13 December 1985 -- Editorial page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Primes -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Language as a "social reality" based on relationships -- 3. Analysis of language by means of categories -- 4. Treatment of language as a system of communication with three sections: grammatical, semantic, pragmatic -- 5. Syntax as the central component -- 5.1. Determination of primes in syntax -- 5.2. Primary government relationships -- 5.3. Primary modification relationships -- 5.4. Characteristic patterns in compound sentences -- 5.5. Secondary role of morphology and selection -- 5.6. Possible role of sandhi -- 5.7. Role of modulation (intonation) -- 5.8. Fundamental relationship in V and O -- 5.9. Other bases for syntactic typology -- 5.10. Phonological typology -- 6. Textual patterning -- 7. Semantic and pragmatic typology -- 8. Typology based on the treatment of the noun as primary -- the fallacy of taking traditional logic as basis -- 9. Proposed tasks for typological study -- 9.1. Historical typology -- 9.2. Exploration of 'absolute universais' -- 9.3. Language typology and language acquisition -- Basic Typological Units -- Areal Phonetic Typology in Time: North and East Asia -- 1. The Systems -- 2. Subsystems -- 3. Areas, Foci -- Lexico-semantic Reconstruction and the Linguistic Paleontology of Culture -- Universals Specials and Typology -- Commensurability of Terms -- 1. Morphology -- 2. Alignment -- 3. Voice and Changes of Grammatical Relation -- 4. Complementation -- 5. Conclusion -- Metalanguage -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Consistency of Orientation -- 3. Hierarchization -- 4. Predicate-Actant Structure -- 5. Predicate Formation Operators -- 6. Correspondence of Function-Argument Structure -- 7. Conclusion.

On the Notion of Language Type -- On Typological Shift -- Discourse Function and Word Order Shift: A Typological Study of the VS/SV Alternation -- 1. The VSO/SVO/SOV Typology: Some General Remarks -- 2. Some Functional-Grammatical Preliminaries -- 2.1. Preferred Argument Structure -- 2.2. VS/SV Alternating Languages -- 2.3. Categoriality -- 2.4. Transitivity -- 3. Malay -- 3.1. Clause Types -- 3.1.1. Preferred Clause Structure -- 3.1.2. Clauses with Lexical Agent and Patient -- 3.2. Typological Shift in Malay -- 3.3. Morphological Correlates of the VS-to-SV Shift? -- 3.4. Categoriality and Typological Shift -- 3.5. Reporting and Predication -- 4. Germanic -- 5. General Discussion -- 6. Conclusion -- On Form and Content in Typology -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Reflexivity -- 2.1. Split intransitivity -- 2.2. Syncretism -- 3. Split possession: The semantics of alienable and inalienable possession. -- 4. Form determines content -- 4.1. Alienable and inalienable possession -- 4.2. Split intransitivity -- 4.3. Case meanings -- 5. Lability -- 6. Conclusions -- The Meaning-Form Correspondence in Grammatical Description -- A Survey of Major Alaskan Language Types -- 1. Phonology -- 2. Morphology -- 3. Syntax -- References -- Index.