Linguistic typology and language universals

Linguistic typology is a theoretical approach to the study of human language, with sophisticated methods and an impressive body of knowledge. The primary objective of linguistic typology is to study the structural variation within human language with a view to establishing limits on this variation and seeking explanations for the limits. Thus, practitioners of linguistic typology – or linguistic typologists – tend to work with a large number of languages in their research, typically asking ‘what is possible, as opposed to impossible, in human language?’ or, more modestly, ‘what is more probable, as opposed to less probable, in human language?’