Typology and Areality

Abstract

Analysis of typological features has received much attention in recent years. Despite claims that such analysis replicates the families and subgroups of families that are the product of work using the comparative method, there is strong evidence that the geographic distribution of typological features reflects socio-geographically relevant areas, rather than historically related subgroups. Further, different subsets of data can reveal different kinds of contact events, or at least the effects of different kinds of contact.