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Robert Forkel edited this page Jun 30, 2021 · 24 revisions

Is a pragmatically unmarked constituent order verb-medial for transitive clauses?

Summary

This feature focuses on the relative order of the verb and its core arguments in a transitive clause. Any constituents other than the core arguments (A, P) and the verb of a transitive clause should be ignored. All questions concerning order of constituents aim to capture the pragmatically unmarked order between full NP constituents (not pronouns). Do not consider ‘left or right-dislocation’, accompanied by intonational signals or pragmatically marked constructions such as focus. If the verb phrase consists of several elements it is the lexical verb that counts. The position of auxiliaries/TAME marking elements can be ignored.

Procedure

  1. Find the order of core arguments in the language, either in the text of the grammar or in examples involving full NP core arguments.
  2. Code 1 if the pragmatically unmarked constituent order is consistently SVO.
  3. Code 1 if the pragmatically unmarked constituent order is consistently OVS.
  4. Code 1 if the unmarked constituent order is free and the author states that there is a pragmatically unmarked constituent order for transitive clauses in which the verb occurs between the subject (A argument) and the object (P argument).
  5. Code 1 if the unmarked constituent order is free and there are examples of a pragmatically unmarked constituent order which is SVO or OVS.
  6. Code 0 if the grammar states that the language has a fixed word order for transitive clauses that is not SVO or OVS.
  7. Code 0 if the grammar states the language has free or flexible word order but any SVO or OVS constituent order is pragmatically marked.
  8. Code 0 if the constituent order is SVO or OVS only in examples involving pragmatic marking (contrastive markers, inferential markers, topic change, foregrounding, etc.).
  9. Code ? if the pragmatically unmarked constituent order(s) is not mentioned and cannot be determined by examining examples.

Examples

Central Khmer (ISO 639-3: khm, Glottolog: cent1989)

Central Khmer is coded as 1 based on examples like the one below, which is described as illustrating the "standard" pattern.

ka'se'kaw:   samlap    ko:n    cru:k
farmer       kill      child   pig
‘(The) farmer(s) kill(s)/killed (the) piglet(s).’ (Haiman 2011: 203)

Jaminjung-Ngaliwurru (ISO 639-3: djd, Glottolog: djam1255)

Jaminjung-Ngaliwurru is coded as 1, as constituent order is free. "There is no evidence that any of the possible orderings of arguments with respect to the verb is more ‘basic’, more neutral or more frequent than the others." (Schultze-Bernd 2000: 108)

jalyi   burrb   gan-angga-m             jajaman-ni
leaf    finish  3SG.3SG-get/handle-PRS  wind-ERG
‘the wind is blowing off all the leaves.’ (Schultze-Bernd 2000: 108)

Irish (ISO 639-3: gle, Glottolog: iris1253)

Irish is coded as 1. The inflected verb is usually clause-initial; however, in the progressive construction, the first element is an inflected copula, whereas the lexical verb follows the subject.

Tá    Séamas   ag    oscailt   an    dorais.
is    James    at    open.VN   the   door.GEN
‘James is opening the door.’ (Doyle 2001: 67)

(Abbreviations: VN = verbal noun)

Nez Perce (ISO 639-3: nez, Glottolog: nezp1238)

Word order in Nez Perce is very free. According to Crook (1999: 231-232) any of the logically possible orders of a transitive verb and its A and P arguments is permissible, as shown in the following example:

ˀáayàtom   páaqnˀìsaqa          qèiqíine
ˀáayat-um  pee-qnˀíi-see-qa     eqi.it-ne
Woman-ERG  3ON3-dig-INCMPL-PST  qeqiit-OBJ
‘The woman was digging the qeqiit (an edible root).’

Other available word orders:
ˀáayàtom  qèiqíine  páaqnˀìsaqa
  S          O          V

páaqnˀìsaqa  ˀáayàtom  qèiqíine
  V             S        O 

páaqnˀìsaqa  qèiqíine  ˀáayàtom
  V            O         S

qèiqíine  páaqnˀìsaqa  ˀáayàtom
  O         V            S

qèiqíine  ˀáayàtom  páaqnˀìsaqa
  O         S         V

Because the available word orders in pragmatically unmarked transitive clauses with full NP arguments include SVO and OVS orders, Nez Perce is coded 1.

Tagalog (ISO 639-3: tgl, Glottolog: taga1270)

Tagalog is coded as 0. Though simple main clauses are predicate-initial, one argument can occur before the predicate only if it is accompanied by the predicate marker ay (Himmelmann 2005: 357).

Ni     lapis   ay   hindi   nagdala     si=Rosa.
even   pencil  PM   NEG     AV.bring    NOM=Rosa
‘Rosa did not bring even a pencil.’ (Schachter & Otanes 1972: 492)

(Abbreviations: AV = actor voice, PM = predicate marker)

Further reading

Dryer, Matthew S. 1989. Discourse-governed word order and word order typology. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 4. 69–90.

Dryer, Matthew S. 2007. Word order. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Clause structure, language typology and syntactic description, Vol. 1 (Second edition), 61–131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dryer, Matthew S. 2013. Order of subject and verb. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Song, Jae Jung. 2011. Word order typology. The Oxford handbook of linguistic typology, 253–279. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

References

Crook, Harold David. 1999. The phonology and morphology of Nez Perce stress. Los Angeles: University of California. (Doctoral dissertation.)

Doyle, Aidan. 2001. Irish. (Languages of the World : Materials, 201.) Munich: Lincom Europa.

Haiman, John. 2011. Cambodian (Khmer). (London Oriental and African Language Library, 16.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Himmelmann, Nikolaus. 2005. Tagalog. In Alexander Adelaar & Nikolaus Himmelmann (eds), The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar, 350–376. London: Routledge.

Schachter, Paul & Otanes, Fe T. 1972. Tagalog reference grammar. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Schultze-Berndt, Eva. 2000. Simple and complex verbs in Jaminjung: A study of event categorisation in an Australian language. Nijmegen: Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen. (Doctoral dissertation.)

Related Features

Patron

Hannah J. Haynie

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