Topological linguistics and the study of linguistic variation

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on topological linguistics and the study of linguistic variation. It discusses the problem of linguistic variation. A topological model has been developed for internal linguistics, starting from the epistemological problem that all linguists must deal with. A topological space could be conceived of as a set of elements where some elements limit the others and are said to be open-sets, and the former and the latter together constitute the closed-sets. Linguistics, when approaching its object of study, is faced with a very similar situation: a language is a set of elements—from utterances to minimal phonic items—where each is described by other surroundi…