Joseph Greenberg
E49682
Joseph Greenberg was an influential American linguist best known for his work on language classification and universals, including proposing major language families such as Nilo-Saharan.
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
American linguist
ⓘ
human ⓘ linguist ⓘ |
| academicDiscipline |
anthropological linguistics
ⓘ
comparative linguistics ⓘ historical linguistics ⓘ |
| approach |
quantitative comparison of many languages
ⓘ
use of large cross-linguistic samples ⓘ |
| contributedTo |
classification of African languages into four major families
ⓘ
establishing linguistic typology as an empirical science ⓘ systematic study of word order patterns ⓘ |
| controversy |
criticism of Amerind macro-family proposal
ⓘ
debate over validity of mass comparison ⓘ |
| countryOfCitizenship | United States of America ⓘ |
| developedMethod | mass lexical comparison ⓘ |
| familyName | Greenberg ⓘ |
| fieldOfWork |
African linguistics
ⓘ
language classification ⓘ language universals ⓘ linguistic typology ⓘ linguistics ⓘ |
| givenName | Joseph ⓘ |
| influenced |
classification of African language families
ⓘ
linguistic typology as a field ⓘ research on language universals ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
anthropology
ⓘ
structural linguistics ⓘ |
| influencedScholar |
Bernard Comrie
ⓘ
Martin Haspelmath ⓘ Matthew Dryer ⓘ |
| knownFor |
Greenbergian universals
ⓘ
classification of African languages ⓘ proposal of the Afroasiatic language family grouping ⓘ proposal of the Amerind macro-family ⓘ proposal of the Nilo-Saharan language family ⓘ word order correlations ⓘ |
| languageOfWork | English ⓘ |
| notableFor |
mass comparison method in historical linguistics
ⓘ
proposing major language families such as Nilo-Saharan ⓘ work on language universals ⓘ |
| proposed |
Afroasiatic as a genetic unit
ⓘ
Amerind as a macro-family of the Americas ⓘ Nilo-Saharan languages ⓘ
surface form:
Nilo-Saharan language family
|
| researchFocus |
genetic classification of languages
ⓘ
typological comparison of languages ⓘ universal properties of human language ⓘ |
| theorized |
cross-linguistic universals of grammar
ⓘ
implicational universals of word order ⓘ |
Referenced by (8)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
Nilo-Saharan phylum