Feature GB131: Is a pragmatically unmarked constituent order verb-initial for transitive clauses?

Patrons: Hannah J. Haynie

Description ⇫

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 VSO.
  3. Code 1 if the pragmatically unmarked constituent order is consistently VOS.
  4. Code 1 if the unmarked constituent order is free and the author states that there is a pragmatically unmarked constituent order which is verb-initial for transitive clauses.
  5. Code 1 if the unmarked constituent order is free and there are examples of a pragmatically unmarked constituent order which is verb-initial for transitive clauses.
  6. Code 0 if the grammar states that the language has a fixed word order for transitive clauses that is not VSO or VOS.
  7. Code 0 if the grammar states the language has free or flexible word order but verb-initial constituent order is pragmatically marked.
  8. Code 0 if the constituent order is verb-initial 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

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).’ (Crook 1999: 231)

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 V-initial orders, Nez Perce is coded 1.

Lao (ISO 639-3: lao, Glottolog: laoo1294)

According to Enfield (2007: 272), the closest word order pattern to a pragmatically unmarked constituent order for transitive clauses is A/S-V-O. In other words, the verb is not initial in pragmatically unmarked clauses (as in the example below). Lao is coded 0.

phuø   pên3  mia2  khòòng3  thaaw4     nan4       hên3  qavaj2ñavaq1  khòòng3  faaj1  coon3
MC.HUM COP   wife  of       young.man  DEM.NPROX  see   organ         of       side   bandit
‘That young man’s wife saw the bandit’s genitals.’ (Enfield 2007: 273)

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.)

Enfield, Nick J. 2007. A grammar of Lao. (Mouton grammar library, 38.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.


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