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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">Dear typologists,</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;">This rather amazing news item:</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/original-human-language-yoda-sounded-201403614.html" target="_blank">http://news.yahoo.com/original-human-language-yoda-sounded-201403614.html</a> </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Georgia" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:11pt;color:#000000;">appeared to be based on this article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="margin-top:10px;text-align:left;"><font face="Georgia" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"><b>The origin and evolution of word order</b></font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><a href="http://www.pnas.org/search?author1=Murray+Gell-Mann&sortspec=date&submit=Submit"><font face="inherit" size="+1" style="font-family:inherit;font-size:14pt;"><b>Murray Gell-Mann</b></font></a></div>
<div align="left" style="padding-left:18px;text-align:left;"><a href="http://www.pnas.org/search?author1=Merritt+Ruhlen&sortspec=date&submit=Submit"><font face="inherit" size="+1" style="font-family:inherit;font-size:14pt;"><b>Merritt </b></font><font face="inherit" size="+1" style="font-family:inherit;font-size:14pt;"><b>Ruhlen</b></font></a></div>
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<li style="margin-top:15px;text-align:left;"><font face="inherit" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:inherit;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Contributed by Murray Gell-Mann, August 26, 2011 (sent for review August 19, 2011)</font></li>
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<div align="left" style="margin-top:3px;text-align:left;"><font face="inherit" size="+1" color="#333300" style="font-family:inherit;font-size:14pt;color:#333300;"><b>Published online before print October 10, 2011, doi:10.1073/pnas.1113716108</b></font></div>
<div align="left" style="margin-top:3px;text-align:left;"><font face="inherit" size="+1" color="#333300" style="font-family:inherit;font-size:14pt;color:#333300;">PNAS<b> </b></font><font face="Georgia" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:11pt;color:#000000;">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:12pt;color:#000000;"> </font><font face="inherit" size="+1" color="#333300" style="font-family:inherit;font-size:14pt;color:#333300;"><b>October 10, 2011</b></font><font face="Times New Roman" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"> </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="inherit" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:inherit;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">This is the abstract:</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="margin-top:10px;text-align:left;"><font face="Georgia" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;"><b>Abstract</b></font></div>
<div align="left" style="margin-top:15px;text-align:left;"><font face="inherit" size="+1" color="#000000" style="font-family:inherit;font-size:14pt;color:#000000;">Recent work in comparative linguistics suggests that all, or almost all, attested human languages may derive from a single earlier language. If that is so, then this language—like nearly all extant languages—most likely had a basic ordering of the subject (S), verb (V), and object (O) in a declarative sentence of the type “the man (S) killed (V) the bear (O).” When one compares the distribution of the existing structural types with the putative phylogenetic tree of human languages, four conclusions may be drawn. (<i>i</i>) The word order in the ancestral language was SOV. (<i>ii</i>) Except for cases of diffusion, the direction of syntactic change, when it occurs, has been for the most part SOV > SVO and, beyond that, SVO > VSO/VOS with a subsequent reversion to SVO occurring occasionally.
Reversion to SOV occurs only through diffusion. (<i>iii</i>) Diffusion, although important, is not the dominant process in the evolution of word order. (<i>iv</i>) The two extremely rare word orders (OVS and OSV) derive directly from SOV.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">I thought this article could be both interesting and surprising for students of word order typology.</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">Peter Bakker</font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">Peter Bakker email: <a href="mailto:linpb@hum.au.dk">linpb@hum.au.dk</a></font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">Department of Linguistics tel. (45) 8942.6553</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">Inst. for Anthropology, Archaeology and Linguistics </font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">Aarhus University tel. institute: (0045)8942.6562 </font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">Nordre Ringgade, building 1410 fax institute: (0045)8942.6570</font></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">DK - 8000 Aarhus C room 340 </font></div>
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<div align="left" style="text-align:left;"><font face="Arial" size="+0" color="#000000" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;">home page: <a href="http://person.au.dk/en/linpb@hum.au.dk" target="_blank">http://person.au.dk/en/linpb@hum.au.dk</a> </font></div>
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