語言類型學(xué)是根據(jù)語言的結(jié)構(gòu)和功能特征對語言進(jìn)行研究和分類的語言學(xué)領(lǐng)域。它的目的是描述和解釋世界語言的共同特性和結(jié)構(gòu)多樣性。[1]的子學(xué)科包括但不限于:定性類型學(xué)，它處理比較語言和語言內(nèi)部差異的問題;數(shù)量類型學(xué)，研究世界語言結(jié)構(gòu)模式的分布;解釋這些分布的理論類型學(xué);句法類型學(xué)主要研究詞序、詞形、語法和選擇;詞匯類型學(xué)研究語言詞匯。

Linguistic typology is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural and functional features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages.[1] Its subdisciplines include, but are not limited to: qualitative typology, which deals with the issue of comparing languages and within-language variance; quantitative typology, which deals with the distribution of structural patterns in the world’s languages; theoretical typology, which explains these distributions; syntactic typology, which deals with word order, word form, word grammar and word choice; and lexical typology, which deals with language vocabulary.