Current trends in grammar writing

Abstract

Abstract Over the last few decades, there has been a tremendous increase in the production of descriptive grammars for languages that had previously been poorly described or lacked description altogether. In most cases, these are minority languages, and many of them are endangered. To enhance the dialogue between grammar-writers and typologists, the conference Descriptive Grammars and Typology was held at the University of Helsinki (Finland) at the end of March, 2019. In this paper, we discuss three current trends in grammar writing that emerged from the conference plenaries as well as from many other presentations: (i) the target audience of grammars and the role of language communities in grammar writing, (ii) the digitalization of grammaticography and (iii) themes that have earlier been more or less neglected in grammars but that would bring more insight into typological research as well as into understanding the structures of individual languages: discourse, variation, diachrony and contact effect of languages.