Editing Sign language (section)

=== Typology ===
{{See also|Linguistic typology}}

Linguistic typology (going back to [[Edward Sapir]]) is based on word structure and distinguishes [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphological]] classes such as [[Agglutination|agglutinating]]/concatenating, [[Inflexion|inflectional]], polysynthetic, incorporating, and isolating ones.

Sign languages vary in word-order typology. For example, Austrian Sign Language, Japanese Sign Language and [[Indo-Pakistani Sign Language]] are [[Subject-object-verb]] while ASL is [[Subject-verb-object]]. Influence from the surrounding spoken languages is not improbable.

Sign languages tend to be incorporating classifier languages, where a classifier handshape representing the object is incorporated into those transitive verbs which allow such modification. For a similar group of intransitive verbs (especially motion verbs), it is the subject which is incorporated. Only in a very few sign languages (for instance Japanese Sign Language) are agents ever incorporated. In this way, since subjects of intransitives are treated similarly to objects of transitives, incorporation in sign languages can be said to follow an ergative pattern.

Brentari<ref name="Brentari1998">Brentari, Diane (1998) ''A prosodic model of sign language phonology''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Brentari |first1=Diane |title=Modality and Structure in Signed and Spoken Languages |isbn=9780511486777 |chapter=Modality differences in sign language phonology and morphophonemics |year=2002 |pages=35–36 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511486777.003 |editor1=P. Meier |editor2=Kearsy Cormier |editor3=David Quinto-Pozos}}</ref> classifies sign languages as a whole group determined by the medium of communication (visual instead of auditory) as one group with the features monosyllabic and polymorphemic. That means, that one syllable (i.e. one word, one sign) can express several morphemes, e.g., subject and object of a verb determine the direction of the verb's movement (inflection).

Another aspect of typology that has been studied in sign languages is their systems for [[Cardinal number (linguistics)|cardinal numbers]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Ulrike|first1=Zeshan|last2=Escobedo Delgado|first2=Cesar Ernesto|last3=Dikyuva|first3=Hasan|last4=Panda|first4=Sibaji|last5=de Vos|first5=Connie|title=Cardinal numerals in rural sign languages: Approaching cross-modal typology|journal=Linguistic Typology|volume=17|issue=3|year=2013|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261473038|doi=10.1515/lity-2013-0019|hdl=11858/00-001M-0000-0013-B2E1-B|s2cid=145616039|hdl-access=free}}</ref> Typologically significant differences have been found between sign languages.