Word Order Universals: Refinements and Clarifications

1988 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyle Campbell ◽  
Vit Bubenik ◽  
Leslie Saxon
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Supplementary Data ◽  
Basic Word ◽  
Language Sample

Studies of word-order universals have had great impact in modern linguistics, thanks to Greenberg’s (1963) work and to Hawkins’s (1983) refinements. Greenberg’s conclusions were based on a sample of 30 languages “for more detailed information” and 142 languages “for certain limited cooccurrences of basic word order” (Hawkins 1983:xi; cf. Greenberg 1963:74–75). Hawkins expanded the 142 “to some 350 languages”, and for “between one-third and one-half of these supplementary data have been collected of the type that Greenberg listed in his 30-language sample” (Hawkins 1983:xi-xii). Hawkins proposed extensive revisions in Greenberg’s universals based on this expanded sample.

Turkish and the Southwestern Turkic (Oghuz) languages

2020 ◽  
pp. 392-410
Author(s):  
Jaklin Kornfilt
Keyword(s):  
Structural Properties ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Vowel Harmony ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Basic Word ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Modern Standard

The Southwestern (Oghuz) branch of Turkic consists of languages that are largely mutually intelligible, and are similar with respect to their structural properties. Because Turkish is the most prominent member of this branch with respect to number of speakers, and because it is the best-studied language in this group, this chapter describes modern standard Turkish as the representative of that branch and limits itself to describing Turkish. The morphology of Oghuz languages is agglutinative and suffixing; their phonology has vowel harmony for the features of backness and rounding; their basic word order is SOV, but most are quite free in their word order and are wh-in-situ languages; their relative clauses exhibit gaps corresponding to the clause-external head, and most embedded clauses are nominalized. Fully verbal embedded clauses are found, too. The lexicon, while largely Turkic, also has borrowings from Arabic, Persian, French, English, and Modern Greek and Italian.

Basic word order frequencies or manning/parker contra tomlin

1991 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-88
Author(s):  
Bert Peeters
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Basic Word

Basic word order in classical Arabic and Jordanian Arabic

Lingua ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 65 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 107-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Khalid El-Yasin
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Jordanian Arabic ◽  
Basic Word ◽  
Classical Arabic

scholarly journals Bimodal bilingual language development in a hearing child of deaf parents

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanne M. Johnson ◽  
Ruth V. Watkins ◽  
Mabel L. Rice
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Home Environment ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Developmental Patterns ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Hearing Child ◽  
Deaf Parents ◽  
Sample Data ◽  
Bilingual Language Development ◽  
Language Sample

ABSTRACTThis study examined the spoken English development of a hearing child of deaf parents who used American Sign Language (ASL). The child first learned ASL in interactions with his parents and later developed spoken English outside the home environment. It was hypothesized that the child's acquisition of spoken English would systematically reflect both expected monolingual developmental patterns and interlinguistic transfer. Four areas of mismatch between ASL and spoken English were identified. Language sample data from ages 2;9–5;2 were examined for evidence to evaluate the hypotheses. Features that reflected the simultaneous versus sequential mismatch between ASL and English, undifferentiated versus differentiated aspects, free versus bound morpheme mechanisms, and word-order differences provided evidence of ASL influence on spoken English acquisition. Although not extensive, ASL appears to have exerted consistent influence on several areas of the child's spoken English development.

scholarly journals Does the Syntax of Modern Persian Allow the locative Verbs to Participate in Alternation?

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 255
Author(s):  
Masoume Yakhabi ◽  
Ahmadreza Lotfi
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Formation Process ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Double Object ◽  
Argument Position ◽  
Basic Word ◽  
Syntactic Pattern ◽  
Specific Object

Some locative verbs enjoy the possibility of appearing in more than one syntactic pattern. There is, however, controversy on whether locative verbs in modern Persian can participate in alternation or not. The aim of the present paper is to investigate the issue, analyzing basic syntactic word order of double object constructions in Persian, syntactic and semantic features of specific and nonspecific objects in Persian and syntactic word formation process. The point that the basic word order in Persian allows only one thematic object (either specific or non-specific object) and the fact that the non-specific objects in double object constructions can join the verb and create one syntactic and semantic unit that saturates one argument position, all indicate that locative verbs cannot alternate in this language. The main argument here is that when the non-specific object joins the verb, it becomes a part of the verb and is not anymore a participant in the action of the verb. All the evidence provided are in favor of the absence of alternating locative verbs in Persian. 

scholarly journals Resilient grammars: On VO/OV in Germanic linguistic islands in Northern Italy

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-355
Author(s):  
Cecilia Poletto ◽  
Günther Grewendorf
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Specific Property ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Common Path ◽  
Diachronic Change ◽  
Basic Word ◽  
Linguistic Islands

In this work we consider some residual cases of OV order in Cimbrian and show that this is due to the interaction between verb movement, a language specific property, and the syntax of bare quantifiers. This has consequences on a general theory on the change of the basic word order, since it shows that the passage from OV to VO can involve different structures in different languages depending on other properties, hence it is not possible to trace a common path in the diachronic change for all languages that have undergone this mutation.

scholarly journals BASIC WORD ORDER IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE: A HYBRID EXTENDED PROJECTION PRINCIPLE (EPP) | A ORDEM BÁSICA DE PALAVRAS NO PORTUGUÊS BRASILEIRO: UM PRINCÍPIO DA PROJEÇÃO ESTENDIDO (EPP) HÍBRIDO

2017 ◽  
pp. 104
Author(s):  
Michelle Sheehan
Keyword(s):  
Hybrid Model ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Small Clause ◽  
External Argument ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Basic Word ◽  
Explanatory Account ◽  
Extended Projection ◽  
The Subject

<p>This paper proposes a novel analysis of word order in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), based on a hybrid model of EPP satisfaction. It is proposed that the subject requirement or EPP is a [uD] feature on T which can be satisfied either by DP movement or by movement of an inflected verb bearing a [D] feature in BP. This, it is claimed, offers an explanatory account of basic word order patterns in BP.  External argument DPs, merged above V, are closer to T than V, meaning that they must raise to satisfy the EPP, predicting SV(O) order with transitive and unergative predicates, including transitive psych-predicates. Internal arguments are merged below V, however, and so with unaccusatives, it is movement of the verb bearing a [uD] feature which satisfies the EPP, giving rise to VS order. With copular verbs which take small clause complements, a similar affect holds, as the copular verb can satisfy the EPP. Verb movement can also satisfy the EPP in impersonal contexts, hence the fact that BP lacks overt expletives.</p><p>Resumo: Este artigo propõe uma nova análise da ordem de palavras no Português Brasileiro (PB), baseada num modelo hibrido de satisfação do Princípio da Projeção Extendido (PPE). Propõe-se que o requisito de sujeito ou PPE é um rasgo [uD] no núcleo T, que se pode satisfazer ou por alçamento de um DP ou por movimento de um verbo flexionado com um traço [D] no PB. Esta abordagem oferece uma análise explanatória da ordem básica das palavras no PB. Os argumentos externos (dos verbos transitivos e inergativos) que originam acima do verbo, são mais perto de T, assim que devem mover para satisfazer o PPE, o que prediz corretamente a ordem SV(O) com estes verbos (incluso os predicados psicológicos transitivos).  Os argumentos internos originam abaixo do verbo, assim que com os verbos inacusativos, e o verbo com um traco [D] que deve satisfazer o PPE, ocasionando a ordem VS. Com os verbos copulares com clausulas pequenas como complemento, observamos algo parecido porque a verbo copulativo também pode satisfazer o PPE. O alçamento do verbo também pode satisfazer o PPE em contextos impessoais, por isso a falta de expletivos no PB. </p><p> </p>

Diachronic interpretations of word order parameter cohesion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Whitman ◽  
Yohei Ono
Keyword(s):  
Correspondence Analysis ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Order Parameter ◽  
Multiple Correspondence Analysis ◽  
Statistical Tools ◽  
Cluster Analyses ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
Language Sample ◽  
Head Parameter

This chapter uses statistical tools to investigate the interrelationship between typological features in the World Atlas of Language Structures Online (Dryer and Haspelmath 2013) in the WALS 201 language sample, with the objective of determining how crosscategorial word order generalizations might emerge as the result of syntactic change. Multiple Correspondence Analysis and a variety of cluster analyses show that word order features tend to group along the familiar lines of the Head Parameter. But there is an important caveat to this, previously noticed by Albu (2006): word order features in NP (e.g. [Order of noun and determiner], [Order of noun and adjective]) group separately from word order features in VP and PP, with the exception of [Order of noun and genitive]. We provide a diachronic explanation for this fact: nouns and their arguments may be reanalysed as PPs, or in the case of reanalysed nominalizations, clauses.

Yukuben

2020 ◽  
pp. 476-494
Author(s):  
Rose-Juliet Anyanwu
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Structure Aspect ◽  
Basic Word ◽  
Phonological System

Yukuben is a Benue-Congo (Niger-Congo phylum) language spoken by some 20,000 persons along the foot of the mountains separating Cameroon and Nigeria. The vowel system is based on [ATR] harmony, and the consonant inventory is complex and fairly symmetric. Nouns are arranged in classes with an agreement system. In the verbal structure aspect and mood are more relevant than tense, whereby the aspect system is considered under two main broad sub-systems, precisely perfective and imperfective. The basic word order is SVO. The chapter gives a neat overview of the phonological system, of word categories, derivational and inflectional processes, and syntactic patterns such as subordination and coordination.

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