Universals of Human Language: Method & theory

Joseph Harold Greenberg, Charles Albert Ferguson

Stanford University Press, 1978 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 286 pages

The 46 papers in this 4-volume collection pro-vide clear and certain evidence that the search for "implicational universals" of human language (that is, for valid empirical generalizations such as "if property Y exists in a language, then property X must exist as well") has established itself, once and for all, as a powerful and dynamic force in modern linguistics. Concomitantly, the collection attests to a broadened use among scholars engaged in universals re-search of a theoretical and methodological strategy-pioneered, elaborated, and most extensively applied by Joseph Greenberg- that contrasts in fundamental respects with procedures favored by generative grammarians. Finally, and most impressive of all, the papers present abundant "results," a profusion of concrete findings that should persuade even the most hardened skeptics that implicational principles have a great deal to tell about what human language is and how it got to be that way. -- from http://www.jstor.org (May 21, 2014).

About the author

Joseph H. Greenberg, May 28, 1915 - May 7, 2001 Joseph H. Greenberg was born on May 28, 1915 in Brooklyn, New York to a Polish immigrant father who owned a pharmacy, but lost it in the Depression. His mother was German, the language that a young Joseph grew up with. Greenberg may have had a career as a professional pianist if he had stayed with it. But while attending Columbia University, Greenberg decided to become a social anthropologists, doing field work on the religion of the Hausa-speaking people of West Africa. He received his Ph. D. from Northwestern University in 1940. After college, Greenberg entered the Army Signal Intelligence Service, decoding Italian signals. It was through this that he realized he wanted to devote his life to the study of linguistics. He returned to Columbia University where he remained from 1948 to 1962, becoming chairman of the anthropology department. From Columbia, Greenberg went on to Stanford, from which he retired from in 1985, but continued to work through til a few months before his death. Greenberg is best known for his attempts to trace relationships among the world's 5,000 languages. Greenberg's major works include his classification of the 1,500 languages of Africa into four groups which was published in 1955. He then assigned the languages of North and South America into three groups in a work entitled "Language in the Americas", published in 1987. Before he died, Greenberg was working on the languages of Asia, a project he was never able to finish. Joseph Greenberg died on May 7, 2001 in Stanford, California from cancer. He was 85.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Universals of Human Language: Method & theory; Language science and national development series; Volume 1 of Universals of Human Language; Volume 1 of Universals of Human Language: Edited by Joseph H. Greenberg, Associate Editors, Charles A. Ferguson & Edith A. Moravcsik
• Authors: Joseph Harold Greenberg, Charles Albert Ferguson
• Editor: Edith A. Moravcsik
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Stanford University Press, 1978
• ISBN: 0804709653, 9780804709651
• Length: 286 pages
• Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / General