Martin Haspelmath

Datos Biográficos

ID740074
NOMBREMartin Haspelmath
NOMBRESMartin
APELLIDOHaspelmath
FIRMAHASPELMATH M
AFILIACIONESMax Planck Society
ORCID0000-0003-2100-8493
VERIFICADOSí
TOTAL DE OBRAS168
TOTAL DE CITAS811
TOTAL COMO AUTOR98
TOTAL COMO EDITOR70
PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN1989
AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN2025
ÍNDICE H13

  • Some comments on robustness in comparative grammar research

    Open AccessMartin HaspelmathARTICLELinguistic Typology2025

    Article Some comments on robustness in comparative grammar research: commentary on “Replication and methodological robustness in quantitative typology” by Becker and Guzmán Naranjo was published on October 1, 2025 in the journal Linguistic Typology (volume 29, issue 3)

  • Nonverbal Clause Constructions

    Open AccessMartin HaspelmathARTICLELanguage and Linguistics Compass2025

    There are about a dozen well‐recognised types of nonverbal clause constructions, but the terminology by which these subtypes are known varies widely. This paper gives an overview of the major types and defines each term carefully, from the perspective of general syntax. For a number of well‐established concepts that have no corresponding well‐established term, I propose novel terms. There are four major predicational types (classificational, attr…

  • Forward-formation, back-formation, and the nature of the inventorium

    Open AccessMartin HaspelmathARTICLEWORD Structure2025Referencias: 40

    This paper discusses back-formation from the perspective of a view of morphology in which there are productive and unproductive declarative schemas, but no abstract processes, so that the issue of the direction of derivation does not arise. This paradigmatic perspective does not make a strict distinction between rules and listed expressions either, and everything that speakers must remember is said to be in the inventorium (a new term with a mean…

  • Inflection and derivation as traditional comparative concepts

    Open AccessMartin HaspelmathARTICLELinguistics2024Citada por: 3Referencias: 73

    This article revisits the distinction between inflectional and derivational patterns in general grammar and discusses the possibility that this well-known distinction is not rooted in the reality of languages, but in the Western tradition of describing languages, through dictionaries (for words, including derived lexemes) and through grammar books (where we often find tables of exemplary paradigms). This tradition has led to rather different term…

  • Defining the word

    Open AccessMartin HaspelmathARTICLEWORD2023Citada por: 7Referencias: 29

    In this paper, I propose a definition of the term word that can be applied to all languages using the same criteria. Roughly, a word is defined as a free morph or a clitic or a root plus affixes or a compound plus affixes. The paper relies on earlier definitions of the terms free, morph, affix, clitic, root, and compound, which are summarized here. I briefly compare the proposed definition with Bloomfield's, I note that it is a shared-core defini…

  • Grambank reveals the importance of genealogical constraints on linguistic diversity and highlights the impact of language loss

    Hedvig Skirgård, Hannah J Haynie et al.PREPRINT2022

    While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2,400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on t…

  • The European linguistic area

    Martin HaspelmathCHAPTERLanguage Typology and Language…2021

  • Language Typology and Language Universals

    Ekkehard König, Eberhard König et al.BOOKLanguage Typology and Language…2021Citada por: 125

  • General linguistics must be based on universals (or non-conventional aspects of language)

    Martin HaspelmathARTICLETheoretical Linguistics2021

    This paper highlights the importance of the distinction between general linguistics (the study of Human Language) and particular linguistics (the study of individual languages), which is often neglected. The term “theoretical linguistics” is often used as if it entailed general claims. But I note that (unless one studies non-conventional aspects of language, e.g. reaction times in psycholinguistics) one must study universals if one wants to make …

  • How to tear down the walls that separate linguists

    Martin HaspelmathARTICLETheoretical Linguistics2021

    Article How to tear down the walls that separate linguists: continuing the quest for clarity about general linguistics was published on June 1, 2021 in the journal Theoretical Linguistics (volume 47, issue 1-2)

  • Bound forms, welded forms, and affixes

    Martin HaspelmathARTICLEVoprosy Jazykoznanija2021

    lt;p>This paper proposes definitions of three terms that can potentially be used in answering key questions of general morphology and syntax: bound form , welded form , and affix . The term affix is sometimes thought to involve phonological “fusion” of some kind, but I propose that it is best de- fined as a bound non-root that cannot occur on roots of different classes. A bound form (or non-autono- mous form) is generally defined as a form that d…

  • Explaining grammatical coding asymmetries

    Open AccessMartin HaspelmathARTICLEJournal of Linguistics2021Citada por: 18Referencias: 14

    This paper claims that a wide variety of grammatical coding asymmetries can be explained as adaptations to the language users’ needs, in terms of frequency of use, predictability and coding efficiency. I claim that all grammatical oppositions involving a minimal meaning difference and a significant frequency difference are reflected in a universal coding asymmetry, i.e. a cross-linguistic pattern in which the less frequent member of the oppositio…

  • Role-reference associations and the explanation of argument coding splits

    Open AccessMartin HaspelmathARTICLELinguistics2021Citada por: 10Referencias: 74

    Argument coding splits such as differential (= split) object marking and split ergative marking have long been known to be universal tendencies, but the generalizations have not been formulated in their full generality before. In particular, ditransitive constructions have rarely been taken into account, and scenario splits have often been treated separately. Here I argue that all these patterns can be understood in terms of the usual association…

  • The morph as a minimal linguistic form

    Open AccessMartin HaspelmathARTICLEMorphology2020Citada por: 8Referencias: 35

    This paper makes a terminological proposal: that the old termmorphcan be used for a minimal linguistic form. Many linguists (not only morphologists) need such a term, because we often refer to minimal linguistic forms, but the various terms used by linguists in roughly this meaning are either unclear or do not refer to forms. The term "morpheme" has three rather different meanings, and other terms such as "vocabulary item" are too abstract. The t…

  • Baker, Mark. 2015. Case

    Martin HaspelmathARTICLEStudies in Language2018

    This is an extensive and critical review of Mark Baker's 2015 book "Case: Its principles and parameters"

  • World Atlas of Language Structures

    Open AccessMartin Haspelmath, Inc Wolfram Research et al.DATASETWolfram Research Data Repository2017

  • Explaining alienability contrasts in adpossessive constructions

    Open AccessMartin HaspelmathARTICLEZeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft2017Citada por: 35Referencias: 6

    This paper argues that alienability contrasts in adnominal possessive constructions should not be explained by iconicity of distance, but by predictability due to the higher relative frequency of possessed occurrences of inalienable nouns. While it is true that when there is an alienability split, the alienable construction typically has an additional marker which often separates the possessor from the possessed noun, the broader generalization i…

  • Grammars are robustly transmitted even during the emergence of creole languages

    Open AccessDamián E Blasi, Susanne Maria Michaeli et al.ARTICLENature Human Behaviour2017Citada por: 6Referencias: 36

  • Explaining asymmetries in number marking

    Open AccessMartin Haspelmath, Andres KarjusARTICLELinguistics2017Citada por: 2Referencias: 9

    This paper claims that crosslinguistic tendencies of number marking asymmetries can be explained with reference to usage frequency: The kinds of nouns which, across languages, tend to show singulative coding (with special marking of the uniplex member of a pair), rather than the more usual plurative coding (with special marking of the multiplex member), are also the kinds of nouns which tend to occur more frequently in multiplex use. We provide c…

  • The Serial Verb Construction

    Martin HaspelmathARTICLELanguage and Linguistics 語言暨語言學2016Citada por: 32Referencias: 8

    Since the 1970s, serial verb constructions (SVCs) have been discussed widely in African, Oceanic and many other languages throughout the world. This article gives an overview of the most important generalizations about SVCs that have been proposed and that do seem to hold if a sufficiently restrictive definition of the concept is adopted. The main problem with the earlier comparative literature is that the notion of an SVC has not been delimited …

  • On The Question Of Deep Ergativity

    Martin Haspelmath

    This paper discusses the ergative construction in Lezgian and argues that it is an ordinary transitive construction, not (as argued by I.A. Mel'čuk) an intransitive construction with an agent adjunct.

  • Concessive Conditionals In The Languages Of Europe

    Martin Haspelmath, Eberhard König

    This paper describes concessive conditional clauses (such as "Even if it rains, we will go out") in a wide variety of European languages from a typological perspective and formulates important generalizations.

  • The Converb As A Cross-Linguistically Valid Category

    Martin Haspelmath

    This paper provides an overview of converbs and their properties in a wide range of languages. These forms were long described as "adverbial participles" or "gerunds" or with yet other names.

  • Inflectional synthesis of the verb

    Balthasar Bickel, J Nichols et al.

  • The Survey of Pidgin and Creole languages

    Susanne Maria Michaeli, Philippe Maurer et al.

    These books represent the most systematic and comprehensive guide ever published to the world's pidgins, creoles and mixed languages, designed, edited, and written by the world's leading experts in the field. The three-volume 'survey' brings together over ninety leading experts to present concise accounts of the world's pidgin and creole languages. The division of its three volumes reflects the languages from which they originated. Each entry pro…