Typology as a Tool Typology as a Tool: The Case of Dogon and Bangime

International audience In this paper, the authors demonstrate the role of language typology in the formation of genealogical and diachronic hypotheses about languages, through a case study of the Dogon languages and Bangime – a language isolate spoken among them – spoken in Mali. While careful application of the comparative method remains the Gold-Standard of genealogical evidence (cf. Güldemann 2018), the authors argue that linguistic typologies play a role in the broader holistic of ancestral state reconstruction, notably as part of an initial step of the historical linguistic method: relationship hypothesis formation through historical and typological evidence.The authors contend that because typologies are the result of discrete changes in parameter settings rarely occur at random (and thus uninformative ways). Therefore, because parameter setting occurs within a speaker’s mind, extends to a speech community with an areal and temporal logic, the emerging typologies are objects of diachronic investigation, requiring both social and historical contextualisation. Because change rarely spreads from the individual to an entire community speech community (cf. Ohala 2012), linguistic subsystems show a certain stability or pertinacity, in their phonology (cf. Dresher & Lahiri 2005), morphology and syntax (cf. Plank & Lahiri 2015). Thus Zuk (2022) has contended that relative intergenerational linguistic stability, while not a replacement for the study of shared change, does provide clues into speaker origin and language affiliation.By studying the configuration of constituents within the clausal structure, it is shown that all Dogon languages are homogenous and share the same syntactic templates as well as the same general principles of clausal architecture. Although some constructions in several Dogon varieties can be considered family-internal outliers, the syntactic profile of any given Dogon language can be contrasted with other languages of the West African zone, thus suggesting their distinct genetic affiliation. Furthermore, all features of the negation marker (number, morphology, distribution and morphosyntactic belonging), their position in the clause, or positive/negative equivalences within the TAM systems – bring to light the consistency and homogeneity of the Dogon languages and important divergences in Bangime, supporting the exclusion of Bangime from the Dogon language family.Under the hypothesis that the Dogon languages do form a genealogical family, Zuk (accepted) has undertaken comparative work on 19 Dogon languages. Paradigmatic regularities from the reconstruction of the personal pronouns deny chance occurrence and establishes the genetic unity of the Dogon languages beyond lexical similarities. Despite the great diversity of gender and number marking strategies in the Dogon languages, the pronominal evidence coupled with existing typologies suggests the reconstruction of animate and inanimate categories in the Proto-Language and weight favourably into their classification as Niger-Congo languages (cf. Greenberg 1949).Bangime in contrast, despite evidence that upwards of half its vocabulary may be cognate or borrowed from neighbouring Dogon languages (Hantgan & List 2022), neither shows morphological, syntactic or syntactic typologies, that would push to include it among the Dogon languages, and this despite their ethnic identification as Dogon. These typological grounds, therefore reinforce the hypothesis put forward by Blench (2007) and Hantgan (2013) that Bangime, is in fact an isolate, distinct from both the neighbouring Dogon and Mande language families.Future internal reconstruction within Bangime and continued bottom-up reconstruction in neighbouring families (Drolc 2005; Segerer & Pozdniakov 2024; Pozdniakov 2022; Merrill 2022) will confirm whether at some higher level, Dogon languages and Bangime can both be grouped within a larger Niger-Congo macro family (cf. Greenberg 1949; Westermann 1927). As this work is ongoing, we put forth that the investigation of language relationships remains possible and that the comparative study of typology, as relates to Bangime and Dogon provides fruitful insights into their linguistic past, demonstrating the value of typology in the holistic understanding of language change.ReferencesHantgan, Abbie. 2013. Aspects of Bangime Phonology, Morphology, and Morphosyntax. 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