Feature GB133: Is a pragmatically unmarked constituent order verb-final 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 SOV.
  3. Code 1 if the pragmatically unmarked constituent order is consistently OSV.
  4. Code 1 if the unmarked constituent order is free and the author states that there is a V-final constituent order for transitive clauses that is pragmatically unmarked.
  5. Code 1 if the constituent order is described as free and there are examples of a pragmatically unmarked constituent order which is SOV or OSV.
  6. Code 0 if the grammar states that the language has a fixed word order for transitive clauses that is not SOV or OSV.
  7. Code 0 if the grammar states the language has free or flexible word order but any V-final constituent order is pragmatically marked.
  8. Code 0 if the constituent order is V-final 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

Mangarrayi (ISO 639-3: mpc, Glottolog: mang1381)

Though Merlan (1989: 26) describes OVS word order as more common, OSV order can also be found in pragmatically marked clauses. This is shown in the example below.

0-ḍaway    ̣na-waŋgij 0-ḍad+ma-ñ
N.ABS-tail M.NOM-boy 3SG/3SG-finish-PST.PUNCT
‘The boy finished the tail.’ (Merlan 1989: 26)

Mangarrayi is coded 1.

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-final orders, Nez Perce is coded 1.

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

Haiman (2011: 203) describes the "standard" word order of Central Khmer as SV(O). In unmarked transitive clauses with full nominal arguments verbs are therefore followed by objects, as in the example below.

krabej         kravi:  kba:l
water.buffalo  shake   head
‘The water buffalo shakes its head.’ (Haiman 2011: 203)

Central Khmer is coded 0.

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.)

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

Merlan, Francesca. 1989. Mangarayi. (Lingua Descriptive Studies, 4.) London: Routledge.


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Name Glottocode Family Macroarea Contributor Value Source Comment