The actuality of the present thesis
Over 75% of the world's languages put the subject first
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DILDORA KURSAVOY
- Bu sahifa navigatsiya:
- English: S V
- Japanese S O V
- Verb-inital appears in less than 25% of languages. VSO
- Rare word order is object-initial. OVS
- I.2. Theoretical investigations of word order typology
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Over 75% of the world's languages put the subject first.
SVO: My dog ate my homework. (most common word order, approx. 40% of world's languages), found in English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Hausa (Niger), Thai, Spanish, Russian, Swahili, etc. SOV: My dog my homework ate. (also very common, approx 35%) found in Japanese, Korean, German, Georgian, Cherokee, Tibetan, Navajo, Eskimo, Turkish, Lakota, Quechua (Peru), Dutch, etc.
Verb-inital appears in less than 25% of languages. VSO: Ate the dog my homework. (15%) Found in Hawaiian, Tagalog, Classical Arabic, Welsh, Squamish (Canada), Irish, Hebrew, etc.
VOS: Ate my homework the dog. (less than 10%), found in Malagasay, Tzotsil (Mexico), Huave (Mexico), Coeur d'Alene (Idaho)
Rare word order is object-initial. OVS: My homework ate the dog. (less than 1%) Found in Caribe family of languages in the Amazon basin: Apalai, Bacairi, Hixkaryana, Makusi; Barasano (Colombia)
OSV: My homework the dog ate. (less than 1%), found in Xavante, Apurina and a few other Amazonian languagaes English, and other languages, allows various stylistic uses of word order. For example:
The near total lack of languages favoring object initial word order may simply be a historical coincidence and say nothing about the human brain, which is creative and can devise an object-first language any time it wants. It is interesting to note in this connection that in the movie Star Wars, the character Yoda spoke English with the order OSV: A sign you shall see. Your father he is. The rarest is free word order, found in Latin, Klamath (Oregon), Navajo (although SOV pattern is common). So if the order of the words is free, then how do speakers understand the sentences? In Latin, the spelling of the words, not their order, indicates the meaning: All of these sentences mean "The dog bites the man."
All of these sentences mean "The man bites the dog."
This process is called inflection (inflection means a change in the form of the word to indicate its grammatical function; in this case, subject or object of the sentence)
Latin is arguably the most famous of all dead languages. It's considered extinct because no one has spoken Latin as a native language in more than a thousand years. Yet the history of Roman civilization and conquest is reflected today in so many words in today's English (and Spanish, French, and other Romance languages.) . The classification just given is not absolute. The same language can have one dominant proclivity for a certain word order, yet also have sentences with different word orders. Remember that even in a predominantly SVO language like English, sentences with other word orders occur on a minor basis, usually as stylistic variants: SOV: pensive poets painful vigils keep (Pope); VSO: govern though my song (Milton); OSV: What fools these mortals be (Shakespeare). The near total lack of languages favoring object initial word order may simply be a historical coincidence and say nothing about the human brain, which is creative and can devise an object-first language any time it wants. It is interesting to note in this connection that in the movie Star Wars the character Yoda spoke English with the order OSV: A sign you shall see. Your father he is. I.2. Theoretical investigations of word order typology Greenberg’s (1966) universal no.1: In declarative sentences with nominal subject and object, the dominant order is almost always one in which the subject precedes the object. Basic word order frequencies in two language samples:
Tomlin (1986): functional principles determining basic word order
O before S languages (Pullum 1981) VOS: Malagasy, Seediq (Austronesian) OSV: Kabardian (Northwest Caucasian; ergative case system) OVS: Apalai, Hixkaryana (Carib)6 Determining basic word order in a language Frequency in texts/corpora Pragmatic neutrality: Lei sik matje vs. Sik matje, lei? (Cantonese) you eat what eat what you Janos levelet irt vs. A levelet Janos irta (Hungarian) John letter wrote the letter-Acc John wrote-Def 'John wrote a letter' 'It was John who wriote the letter' Some problematic languaages German: Verb-second in main clauses, SOV in subordinate and non-finite clauses Gestern war ich nicht zu Hause yesterday was I not at home 'Yesterday I was not at home' Weil ich gestern nicht zu Hause war... because I yesterday not at home was 'Because I was not at home yesterday Exercise: consider the sample sentences from Samoan collected by Elinor Ochs (1) Na fasi e le tama Sina (2) Na fasi Sina e la tama Past hit Ag the boy Sina Past hit Sina Ag the boy 'The boy hit Sina.' 'The boy hit Sina.' (3) 'O Pesio ua sau (4) 'olo'o moe le tama Top Pesio Asp come Prog sleep the boy 'Pseio has come.' 'The boy is sleeping' (5) Sua e Lufilufi le kakou mavaega (6) Sua oukou e maakou lol'! break Ag Lufilfi the our promise strike you Ag our truck 'Lufilufi violated our promise.' 'Our truck is going to hit you!' (7) le masi a Sefo (8) le lima o Sefo the biscuit of Sefo the hand of Sefo 'Sefo's biscuit' 'Sefo's hand' (a) What orders of S,V and O are represented in Samoan? (b) Can a basic word order be determined in this language? How? (c) What word orders appear in possessive constructions, and how do these relate to the basic word order? Download 74 Kb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
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