FUNKNET Digest, Vol 100, Issue 10

[Freek Van de Velde]

Dear Ted,
I assume you are familiar with the - not uncontroversial paper - by Murray Gell-Mann and Merritt Ruhlen that appeared a couple of months ago in PNAS ('The origin and evolution of word order')? I am not sure what they claim about case systems, but they do claim that languages tend to evolve from SOV to SVO. There is some reference to similar but earlier claims from Vennemann in the paper.
Best regards,
---
Freek Van de Velde
http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.be/nedling_e/fvandevelde/ 

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Today's Topics:

   1. languages with SOV word order with case-marking vs.	languages
      with SVO word order without case-marking (Ted Gibson)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:52:56 -0500
From: Ted Gibson <egibson at MIT.EDU>
Subject: [FUNKNET] languages with SOV word order with case-marking vs.
	languages with SVO word order without case-marking
To: funknet <funknet at mailman.rice.edu>, Tom Givon <tgivon at uoregon.edu>
Message-ID: <D737E8F8-E7CF-47E7-A931-80DE1DF2E0D7 at mit.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Dear Funknet people:

Can you please provide me with references for the claim that word order in language tends to shift between SOV word order with case-marking to SVO word order without case-marking?  Or any similar such claim?  I am citing Givon for this claim, but I have heard from others that there are some claims that pre-date him.  I am interested in all such references: both pre- and post-Givon.

Yours sincerely,

Ted Gibson



End of FUNKNET Digest, Vol 100, Issue 10
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