Association for Linguistic Typology ALT Logo

Association for Linguistic Typology

ALT

Current News

The membership directory lists all ALT members with details on how to reach them, their language expertise and their research interest .
Do join ALT and get a 50% discount on WALS!
ALT publishes a journal: Linguistic Typology. Latest issue: Vol. 11, No. 3).
Grammar watch (this is a PDF file--click to view, shift-click to download).
ALT's newsletter is sent to ALT Members; it is archived here.
Data-bank of syllabi/syllabuses of typology courses.
The ALT discussion list.
The Universals Archive at the Univerity of Konstanz: http://typo.uni-konstanz.de/archive/intro/
Some typological database sites
- The Typological Database System (TDS) at languagelink.let.uu.nl/tds/
- The Surrey Morphology Group Typological Databases at http://www.smg.surrey.ac.uk/
Discounted grammars and typological literature from Mouton-de Gruyter (order from Mouton Editorial at degruyter com)
Other typological web sites of interest and linguistic organisations are listed here.
Payment and cancellation details.

WALS: The World Atlas of Language Structures

Alt members get a 50 per cent discount. See here for details.

Discounts from Oxford University Press

Members of the Association of Linguistic Typology receive 30% discount on all OUP's linguistics titles for three months only. This offer is available exclusively online until 21st February 2008. After 21st February 2008 the discount will revert to 20%. Go to this address: http://www.oup.co.uk/sale/websocalt7/

THE ASSOCIATION FOR LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY (ALT)

The purpose of the Association for Linguistic Typology (ALT), founded in March 1994 and currently claiming more than 500 members, is to advance the scientific study of typology, that is, of cross-linguistic diversity and the patterns underlying it. To that end ALT seeks

to further mutual awareness, dialogue, and co-operation within the international community of typologists;
to give typology a higher profile within as well as outside linguistics, and in particular to act as an interest group of typologists in relation to the world of science and science funding.

ALT's principal public activities are

the organization of annual or biennial meetings and occasional regional workshops;
the publication of a journal;
the regular awarding of a prize for outstanding typological research.

As an association of linguists whose special professional expertise lies in linguistic diversity, ALT will share in the responsibility for a task of paramount cultural importance -- the documentation and maintenance of this diversity that is in danger of being dramatically reduced in the near future.

At ALT's meetings priority is given to the unhurried presentation and discussion of typological research worth reporting on, and, in addition, host institutions are expected to provide instruction in a language, language family, or linguistic area of their choice. After a pre-inaugural get-together in Konstanz (Germany) in November 1994, ALT's inaugural meeting was held in Vitoria-Gasteiz (Basque Country, Spain) in September 1995, attended by some 100 typologists. The second general meeting took place in Eugene, Oregon (USA), 11-14 September 1997, and the third in Amsterdam, August 1999. Regional workshops have been devoted to methodology (Konstanz, June 1995), the Kartvel family (Jena, Germany, December 1995), modality (Antwerp, November 1996), Malay/Indonesian linguistics (Penang, Malaysia, January 1997) and reflexives/reciprocals (Konstanz, May 2000). From then on, ALT's conferences and workshops are held every two years. Their history can be traced in the Alt News archive.

Under the auspices of ALT, Mouton de Gruyter publishes a journal catering for the special needs of the typological community. Appearing in three issues a year, LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY (LT) contains the following regular elements:

articles with peer commentary, complementary articles, and perhaps other interactive formats;
independent articles;
the implications register, documenting the implicational universals on record;
language profiles and family records;
basic topical bibliographies;
highlights from the history of typology;
reviews, multiple reviews, book notices, literature surveys.

ALT affairs and other matters typological are regularly reported on in ALT NEWS, circulated by electronic as well as snail mail. ALT News is also published on these web pages.

The annual membership fee is Euro 58 for regular members and Euro 34.95 for student members. Under certain conditions, group membership is possible, too. Contact the Secretary-Treasurer (Jean-Christophe Verstraete, Jean-Christophe.Verstraete at arts.kuleuven.be). To join ALT, click here.

The rights of membership include

receiving LT at the membership rate;
presenting papers at meetings;
participation in the LingTyp electronic discussion list;
holding offices in ALT and voting in its elections and award competitions;
buying books from Mouton de Gruyter at discounted prices.

December 1996


The ALT officers

President
Anna Siewierska
Secretary-Treasurer
Jean-Christophe Verstraete
Editor in chief Linguistic Typology
Frans Plank
Executive Committee
Nick Evans
Greville Corbett
Alexandra Aikhenvald
Balthazar Bickel
Martin Haspelmath
John Hawkins
President
Editor in chief LT
Secretary-Treasurer
Editorial Board
Alice Harris
Larry Hyman
Johanna Nichols
Joan Bresnan
Stephen Levinson
Guglielmo Cinque
Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
Joan Bybee
President
Editor in chief LT
News
President
Secretary-Treasurer
Editor in chief LT
Webmaster
Ljuba Veselinova

Pages last updated on May 26, 2008. Please send feedback on these web pages (comments, suggestions, and corrections) to ljuba at ling.su.se.

Thanks are due to the Linguistics Department at Stockholm University for providing web space to ALT