SOV vs SVO word order

[Malcolm Ross]

Richard,

> 1) Do the earliest languages in a family follow SOV order?

The answer to this question can't really help very much, as the  
earliest languages of a family have no special status. For example,  
Proto Austronesian is the earliest *reconstructable* stage of the  
Austronesian family, but it must itself have been a descendant of some  
other at present (and probably forever) unknown earlier language,  
indeed of a whole descent line going back to whenever human beings  
first produced language. (Incidentally, Proto Austronesian seems to  
have been verb-initial, but I think that's a red herring.) The only  
useful diachronic argument would be one that showed that in the past  
more languages were SOV than SVO (and I don't think that is borne out  
by current evidence, which in any case covers only a fairly small part  
of the span of human linguistic history). But if this were so, then  
one would indeed have a paradox implicit in your question 2 below. If  
there was a diachronic tendency for languages to shift from SOV to  
SVO, then it would appear that this was a natural tendency, but this  
tendency is apparently at odds with the claim 'the natural human  
instinct is to think in SOV order'. Whatever way you try to frame the  
'naturalness' argument, it entails a paradox -- implying that neither  
order is more 'natural' than the other.

> 2) Why on earth should they change to another order? (Except, of  
> course, if they come across someone else who has already done it,  
> but then the explanation is required for the 'someone else' doing it).

It is remarkably difficult to find cases of change from OV to VO or  
vice versa that are free from contact.

- Malcolm
_____________________________________

Emeritus Professor Malcolm Ross
Department of Linguistics
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Building No. 9, The Australian National University
CANBERRA A.C.T. 0200, Australia

http://rspas.anu.edu.au/people/personal/rossm_ling.php
http://rspas.anu.edu.au/linguistics/projects/biomdr.html

ANU CRICOS Provider Number is 00120C




On 05/07/2008, at 5:01 PM, Richard Parker wrote:

> PNAS has published an apparently clever experiment that suggests the  
> natural human instinct is to think in SOV order, while about 50% of  
> languages actually use SVO order.
>
>
> For a blog explaining the paper, see:
>
> http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/roots-of-langua.html
>
>
> and for the paper itself:
>
> http://coconutstudio.com/0710060105.full.pdf
>
>
> The experimenters tested gestural order amongst English, Spanish,  
> Chinese (presumably Mandarin) and Turkish. English and Spanish are  
> SVO, as is Chinese (although it seems to be undergoing a change) but  
> Turkish is strictly SOV. All of them tended mostly to 'act out'  
> simple sentences in SOV order, quite counter-intuitively.
>
>
> The researchers also found that in 'non-schooled' sign languages  
> this is the preferred order.
>
>
> I would be very interested in hearing reactions to this from  
> professionals, especially to the questions raised by the researchers  
> themselves:
>
>
> 1) Do the earliest languages in a family follow SOV order?
>
> 2) Why on earth should they change to another order? (Except, of  
> course, if they come across someone else who has already done it,  
> but then the explanation is required for the 'someone else' doing it).
>
> 3) Does language really reflect thinking processes? Sapir-Whorf,  
> anyone?
>
>
> regards
>
>
> Richard
>
> Austronesian Counting now up at: http://austronesiancounting.wordpress.com/
>
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