Welcome to RCLT 

The Research Centre for Linguistic Typology (RCLT) is part of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences within La Trobe University. The Centre is located north of the main Bundoora campus and is within walking distance of tram stop number 61 (tram route 86).

What do we do at RCLT?
The main business of the Centre consists in putting forward inductive generalisations about human language. For instance, it enquires whether all languages have classes of noun and verb. It investigates the interrelation between different grammatical categories -- if gender choice depends upon number is it always the case that there are more genders in singular than plural? And it looks at how languages change -- in what circumstances and from what sources do languages develop tones? And why and how do languages lose tones? A major endeavour is the Dixon/Aikhenvald project 'The categories of human languages', investigating interrelations between grammatical categories across the languages of the world, and also interrelations between grammatical categories and non-linguistic parameters.
The Centre organises an annual International Workshop on topics in typological theory. During the year, various seminars and workshops are also held at the Centre.
RCLT has a number of fixed-term positions which are advertised as they become available. Each year there are also a number of Visiting Fellows who contribute to the highly intellectual ambience of the Centre.
Scholars from other universities who undertake research on language description and in typological issues are encouraged to consider spending their sabbatical at the Centre.

Content Approved by: Director
Page maintained by: Executive Officer
Last Updated: 13 November, 2008 4:12 PM