typological method pace fritz newmeyer extensive discussion methodological issue raise remark independent assessment johanna nichol s book fritz refer incidentally first typological work devote substantial amount effort define delimit sort construction belong particular structural type example many dryer s papers e g dryer a b koptjevskaja tamm ch nominalization stassen ch comparative chain construction haspelmath ch indefinite pronoun generally discussion proper typological markedness criterion croft ch attempt provide general structural criterion large class crosslinguistic phenomenon example formulation structural consequence hopper thompson s transitivity hypothesis p application criterion syntactic category problem croft ch delimit classify phenomenon analyze simple descriptive task fact raise most interest issue typological analysis hardly ignore typological literature second respect basicness language type particular passage croft fritz refer pp argue typologist move classify language typologically classify construction typologically thing nevertheless suggest general criterion determine basic language type despite reservation identify basic language type great majority case define language type instead construction type terribly difficult matthew dryer p c observe inspection text generally tell quickly word order type language own experience study where compare syntax prenominal postnominal modifier quite frustrate difficult language where modifier freely occur both pre postnominally course identification basic type depend resource available quality grammatical description availability text language consultant etc phenomenon study e g word order head mark easier v relative order modifier syntax nonrestrictive modification harder most study insurmountable problem although alway problematic case third sample problem discuss length typologist beside bell s seminal article dryer c perkin croft rijkhoff et al issue too complex here length point issue fritz raise apply different sort sample different purpose mind question independent particular instance probability sample particular dryer perkin croft reference discussion problem note particular stability phenomenon study important factor less stable likely case historically independent question across rare type pertain variety sample particular rijkhoff et al study e g tomlin koptjevskaja tamm haspelmath draw large variety sample select stratify probability sample appropriate generalization dryer s sample technique attempt combine need variety probability sample single sample procedure add shift toward dynamic diachronic interpretation synchronic typological pattern examination cognate phenomenon relate language comparison nonbasic basic typological strategy become another important method analysis means extent problem basic v nonbasic type single language historical relatedness datum set avoid fact exploit modern typological analysis bill croft reference bell alan language sample universal human language vol method theory ed joseph h greenberg charle ferguson edith moravcsik stanford stanford university press croft william typology universal cambridge cambridge university press syntactic category grammatical relation cognitive organization information chicago university chicago press dryer matthew a plural word linguistic b article noun order cls c large linguistic area language sample study language greenbergian word order correlation language hopper paul sandra thompson transitivity grammar discourse language koptjevskaja tamm maria typology action nominal construction stockholm university stockholm perkin revere d statistical technique determine language sample size study languagea rijkhoff jan dik bakker kee hengveld peter kahrel method language sample study language stassen leon comparison universal grammar oxford basil blackwell tomlin russell basic word order functional principle london croom helm dept linguistic u manchester oxford rd manchester m pl uk w croft manchester ac uk fax phone 