1 / 33

Word Order Typology

Word Order Typology. (based on Comrie 1981, Croft 2003, Song 2011). Founding father: the 60s. Joseph Greenberg (1963 talk at First Dobbs Conference on Language Universals ) - ts-ts! 30 (+140) languages 1966 ‘Some universals…’ – 45 universals

deborahtorres
Télécharger la présentation

Word Order Typology

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Word Order Typology (based on Comrie 1981, Croft 2003, Song 2011)

  2. Founding father: the 60s Joseph Greenberg (1963 talk at First Dobbs Conference on Language Universals) - ts-ts! • 30 (+140) languages • 1966 ‘Some universals…’ – 45 universals • Universal 1: In declarative sentences with nominal subject and object, the dominant order is almost always one in which the subject precedes the object • Universal 3: VSO -> prepositional (almost absolute)

  3. Methodological preliminaries Issue with basicness: • Full NPs, prototypical definite S and O, independent clause, stylistically neutral… • Pronominal clitics misbehave • Main and dependent clauses diverge • ‘Thetic’ utterances • Interrogative may have special orders… etc. • Flexible word orders not considered (but what counts as such?)

  4. Methodological preliminaries Croft on basicness: • Not restricted to a grammatical subclass • There goes the ice cream truck. • *There crushes the ice cream truck. • No pragmatic / semantic specialization • Philosophy I’ve always enjoyed.

  5. Methodological preliminaries Croft on basicness: • Less complex constructions • It’s Hana that Federico likes • Frequency • Maybe a reliable proxy for all of the above

  6. Methodological preliminaries • Who’s S? • Erg or Abs? Commonly chosen: A for the sake of comparability • Who’s the relative clause? • In Russian: participial clauses or RC with relative pronouns? • Who’s Gen? • In Russian: possessive adjective or genitive? • Who’s Num? • ‘one’ (Adj) or other? • Dispreference for simultaneous lexical expression of S and O

  7. Methodological preliminaries Misnomer: • Not word order typology • Rather, order of major constituents • Cf. Greenberg’s order of meaningful elements • We’ll have to live with it, though

  8. Methodological preliminaries A model topic for cross-linguistic research: • Typological patterns with no apparent language specific validity • We may not care about what basic word order is while describing an individual language • But: present-day processing-based theories of explanation (Hawkins) may be relevant for individual grammars

  9. Main lines of research: • Distribution: Possible orders of clause constituents • SOV, SVO, VSO, VOS, OVS, OSV • All attested, but unequally • Correlation: looking for universal implications between orders of different types of constituents • Adpositions, adjectives, possessors, RelClauses • Explanation: looking for basic principle of constituency • Branching? Processing?

  10. Dominant orders: kiho-ka saca-lɨl cha-ass-ta (Korean) Keeho-NOM lion-ACC kick-PST-IND ‘Keeho kicked the/a lion.’ khon níi kàt mǎa tua nán (Thai) man this bite dog CLF that ‘This man bit that dog.’ Lladdodd draig ddyn (Welsh) killed dragon man ‘A dragon killed a man.’ (cited after Song 2011)

  11. Rare orders: manasa ny lamba ny vehivavy (Malagasy) wash the clothes the woman ‘The woman is washing the clothes.’ piʔ kokampö unkiʔ (Panare) child washes woman ‘The woman washes the child.’ samũũy yi qa-wùh (Nadёb) howler-monkey people eat ‘People eat howler-monkeys.’ (cited after Song 2011)

  12. Now counted:

  13. Now mapped:(Dryer 2013; 1377 lgs)

  14. Implicational word order universals: dominance Dominant vs. recessive values of word order • If an order only appears as an implicatum, never as an implicans, it is a dominant order SOV&NG ﬤ NA AN ﬤ ~SOV&NG VSO ﬤ NA AN ﬤ ~VSO NDem ﬤ NA AN ﬤ~NDem NNum ﬤ NA AN ﬤ ~NNum

  15. Implicational word order universals: dominance Dominant vs. recessive values of word order Which are dominant, which are recessive? • Dominant order does not bind other values! • DemN NDem • NA + + • AN +-

  16. Implicational word order universals: dominance Dominant order is more frequent cross-linguistically (fragment of Croft 2003: 62 based on Dryer 2001 sample)

  17. Implicational word order universals: harmony One value is harmonic with other if it occurs only with this other value; this is a directed relation: • DemN NDem • NA + + • AN +-

  18. Implicational word order universals: harmony In a bidirectional universal, the two values are mutually harmonic – and this is further assumed (Croft 2003) • Prep Post • NG + - • GN -+

  19. Word order universals From values to parameters • Greenberg 1966: “A dominant order may always occur, but its opposite, the recessive, occurs only when a harmonic construction is likewise present” Why AN&NDem is not attested? • because both AN and NDem would be both recessive and disharmonic • DemN NDem • NA + + • AN +-

  20. From correlations to explanation • Greenberg: reformulating implications in terms of settings of parameters dominant (default) vs. recessive (non-default) and relations between them • Implications are visible consequences of these settings and relations • Are there are ways to explain?

  21. From correlations to explanations VSO / SVO / SOV ~ Pr / Po ~ NG / GN ~ NA / AN • Out of combinations only 15 attested, and only 4 widespread: • VSO & Pr & NG & NA • SVO & Pr & NG & NA • SOV & Po & GN & AN • SOV & Po & GN & NA • Invites generalizations! From unilateral implications to language types / profiles • S as a bad predictor – S dismissed 24 O follows V O precedes V

  22. Lehmann (the 70s) FPP: “Fundamental Principle of Placement” • Concomitance: V & O vs. O & V • Modifiers are placed on the other side of the “Concomitant” • Modi: Adj, Gen, Rel • Inconsistent languages = languages under change • Profiles “VO” and “OV” rather than literal VO/OV • Persian – “VO”, but (S)OV

  23. Vennemann (the 70s) PNS: “Principle of Natural Serialization”; direction of branching (ветвление) • Head (“operand”) vs. dependents (“operator”) • Order in <dependent,head> assumedly determined by the mutual order in <O,V> *Adpositions are considered heads

  24. Vennemann (the 70s) OPERAND verb verb auxiliary noun noun noun noun noun comparison marker comparative adjective adposition OPERATOR object adverbial main verb adjective relative clause genitive numeral determiner adjective standard of comparison noun phrase

  25. Vennemann (70s): Der Teufel steckt im detail - overgeneralization VSO / SVO / SOV ~ Pr / Po ~ NG / GN ~ NA / AN • Out of 24 combinations, Vennemann allows only 3: • VSO & Pr & NG & NA • SVO & Pr & NG & NA • SOV & Po & GN & AN • SOV & Po & GN & NA • Hawkins counts that this accounts for slightly less than 50% of his sample • But: Comrie’s ammendment: scale rather than two binary classes • SVO – bad predictor (nonce in Greenberg’s universals) • But: Dryer’s larger sample show that this is overestimated: SVO does pattern with VSO, on the whole (SOV --- SVO – VSO)

  26. Hawkins 1983 Make no exception for me, please! Complicated system of multi-conditioned implications • Pr -> (NA -> NG) • Pr -> (NDem -> NA) • Pr -> (NNum -> NA), следовательно: • Pr -> (Ndem -> NG), Pr -> (NNum -> NG) • Two exceptions! Ammendment: • Pr & -SVO -> (NDem -> NG) • Pr & -SVO -> (NNum -> NG)

  27. Hawkins 1983 Shift from clause to NP constituents; implications translated into HSP: Heaviness Serialization Principle • in a Prep language, the heavier the constituent, the less likely it is located to the left of the head noun • light Det,Num < Adj < Gen < Rel heavy • + Det/Num N Gen/Rel • - Gen/Rel N Det/Num • Pronouns earlier than full NPs (T and R in English) • Complement clauses may move right • Incipient functional motivation: the ease of processing • Further elaborated in Hawkins 1994, 2004 • More complicated with Post languages • +mobility principle( - some consituents are more mobile than others

  28. Dryer 1992 • Large and principled sampling • 600 lgs (1500 in his WALS map) • weighted for geneology • Rehabilitation of VO~OV typology • Including arguing for SVO to be indeed VO • Arguing against head – dependent explanations

  29. Dryer 1992 • Against head – dependent explanations • AN~NA order is unpredictable • Article, auxiliary are predicted in a wrong way • From dependency to “patterning” • V-patterners vs. O-patterners • genitives and relative clauses are O-patterners • determiners and numerals are V-patterners • adjective are none-patterners • Uh-uh… calls for explanation!

  30. Dryer 1992 Branching direction theory (BDT). In a [XY] constituent: • the V-patterner is the non-branching (non-phrasal) constituent (e.g. noun, article, numeral) • the O-patterner is the branching (phrasal) consituent (e.g. genitive phrase, relative clause) • in adjective + noun, none is branching… • at least, none is recursively branching • ЮЛ! «От ветвления к ветвимости»

  31. Beyond branching Information structure – discarded by non-basicness parameter • topic left • reason for S earlier than O • clefts and questions left • possessor left from the possessed item (anchoring) Areal influences • Basic word order seems to be relatively easy borrow

  32. WOT cornerstones: a typology of typologies • Greenberg: order in the clause (SOV etc.) • Lehman: order in the clause (“OV”~“VO”) • Vennemann: order in the clause (OV~VO) • Hawkins (early): adposition based (NP-centered), implications and hierarchies • Dryer: back to OV~VO

  33. Photo stock

More Related