These papers from the 1987 Typology Symposium - a follow-up to the 1985 meeting in Moscow - deal with the relevance of typology for historical linguistics. Its application in understanding phonological and grammatical change is examined for a variety of languages.

1. General and specific tendencies in historical change of language type (by Yartseva, Viktoria N.); 2. Typology in the service of internal reconstruction: Saxalin Nivx (by Austerlitz, Robert); 3. Typology and phonological history (by Timberlake, Alan); 4. Diachronic typology and reconstruction: The "Archaim" of Germanic and American in light of the Glottalic Theory (by Gamkrelidze, Thomas V.); 5. Alignment typology and diachronic change (by Harris, Alice C.); 6. On the soource of the genitive in ergative languages (by Klimov, Georgij A.); 7. Some preconditions and typical traits of the Stative-Active language type (with reference to Proto-Indo- european) (by Nichols, Johanna); 8. Historical morphemics aand unit-order typology (by Vinogradov, Viktor A.); 9. Relative pronouns and P.I.E. Word order type in the context of the eurasiatic hypothesis (by Greenberg, Joseph H.); 10. Diachronic change and typology, as illustrated with languages of east and southeast Asia (by Solntseva, Nina V.); 11. Typology and change in Alaskan languages (by Krauss, Michael E.); 12. Principles of grammaticization: towards a diachronic typology (by Hopper, Paul J.); 13. Syntactic Residues (by Lehmann, Winfred P.); 14. References; 15. Index