Word order universals revisted: the principle of Head Proximity (1986) (original) (raw)

Word Order Typology and Language Universals

A brief introduction on word order is given as introduction. The word order parameters have been discussed as they are relevant in typologizing a language based on these parameters. The relative word order of subject, verb and object gives rise to six types: SOV, VSO, VOS, OSV and SVO. The correlations among word order parameters such as Greenberg’s correlations have been described. Generalization of Greenberg’s results also discussed. This is followed by a discussion on the value of word order typology, deeper explanations for word order universals, and methodological problem with reference to subject, object, indirect object and variant word orders. After this a discussion on factors determining word order is given. Under this heading the basic principles, topicalization hierarchies, and position of clitic pronouns have been discussed.

The Uniqueness of English Noun Phrase In Relation to Word Order Universals

Journal of English and Education (JEE), 2009

The languages used allover theworld have their own grammars consisting ofcertain components, like items, word order, and prosodic patterns. Based onthe findings ofthetypological research conducted bysome linguists, like Chomsky (1965), Greenberg (1966), andHawkins (1983), it is known that the human languages have certain tendencies. After comparing a number of 30languages, Greenberg made three classifications of language in terms of universal word order, they are; (1) the languages ofVSO type, (2) languages ofSVO type, and (3) languages ofSOVtype. Hefound that thethree types of classification correlate with the languages in other places in the grammar consistently. In addition, he also made 15 formulations of universal word orders,in which threeof themare; (1) Languages with dominantSVO order always have prepositions; (2) on the contrary, the ones with SOY type usually have postpositions; and (3) in the languages with dominant SVO order, the genitive and adjectives follow the noun. This formulation is supported by Hawkins after comparing 336 languages from different families. Based on the above formulation; it is found.that English hasuniqueness in terms of the phrase order. In this language, the order of NP is AN and GN despite having a relatively fixed order, SVO. This studyaimsto discuss the forms ofEnglish NP and to find outthe reason why English has uniqueness in its phrase order based on the formulation made by Greenberg and Hawkins.

Word order type and syntactic structure

Linguistic variation yearbook, 2001

The central claim of this paper is that languages of one and the same word order type do not necessarily have the same IP syntax. For example, among verb-final languages two rather different syntactic types can be distinguished. The majority of verb-final languages are head-final in IP, in the sense that every projection in the IP domain has its complement to its left in the surface order. This is seen here as the result of repeated movement of complement to the nearest Spec. In other verb-final languages, the surface order is simply a result of argument movement. The projections in IP still have their complements to their right. It is further suggested that the class of verb-initial languages may be divided in two along similar lines. Finally, the non-existence of SVO languages with inflectional markers in front of the subject is taken as support for the idea that in the absence of strong features in IP, the c(omplement)-features of the heads in IP take effect, thereby yielding headfinal IP structure.

Two Asymmetries between Pre-­ and Post-­Head Order and their Implications for Syntactic Theory

Greenberg's (1963) Universal 20 can be roughly summarized as 'fixed word order preceding the head; variable word order following it'. The cross-linguistic distribution of scrambling/case adjacency displays the opposite pattern: there is variable word order preceding the head (scrambling), and fixed word order following it (case adjacency). These generalizations are of course not on a par: Universal 20 describes cross-linguistic word order variation, while scrambling is a language-internal phenomenon. Nevertheless, it can be demonstrated that popular analyses of Universal 20 and scrambling/case adjacency are incompatible. This incompatibility can be avoided if (i) the idea of a single functional hierarchy spanning the entire verbal extended projection is rejected (see also Bobaljik 1999), and (ii) the syntax is sensitive to linear order (thus allowing constraints that require some element to precede another). In the resulting proposal, the position of the head is associat...

Interaction of syntactic and pragmatic factors on basic word order in the languages of Europe

"Interaction of syntactic and pragmatic factors on basic word order in the languages of Europe",Bernini, G. e Schwartz, M. L. (edited by), Pragmatic Organization of Discourse in the Languages of Europe, Berlin / New York, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 357-544. ISBN: 3-11-015753-5., 2006

a different distribution according to whether it is syntactically encoded as S or as O and/or whether it has the SF of agent (= A) or of patient (= P). The options relating to a particular distribution are, of course, dependent on the typological characteristics of the various languages.