Negative SOV Word Order - any parallels or ?

[Matti Miestamo]

Dear Larry,

In my study of structural differences between affirmatives and negatives
I have come across a few languages where word order is somehow affected.
Not all of these cases are directly relevant to your question, but the
following might be of interest (in addition to the Kru languages that
you know more about).

In Southern Surma languages, the word order found in affirmatives is VSO
(in Murle) or SVO (in Me'en and Mursi), but in negatives we get SVO in
Murle (where the shift is optional) and SOV in Mursi and Me'en (see
Unseth, P. 1986. Word order shift in negative sentences of Surma
languages. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 5:135-143). According to
Unseth, the word order shift is related to the origin of the negative
element as a verb.

In Bafut (Bantu), a change from SVO to SOV also occurs (see Chumbow, B.
& P. Tamanji. 1994. Bafut. In P. Kahrel & R. van den Berg, ed.,
Typological studies in negation. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 211-236).

I'd certainly be interested in hearing more about what's going on in
Legbo. It sounds highly relevant to what I'm studying right now.

Best Wishes,
Matti

-------------------------------------------------
Matti Miestamo
University of Helsinki
matmies at ling.helsinki.fi
http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/~matmies/index.html
-------------------------------------------------


"Larry M. Hyman" wrote:
>
> Our field methods class is working on an Upper Cross language of
> Nigeria, Legbo. This group of languages has the property of "SVO"
> word order in the affirmative, but "SOV" in the negative, e.g.
>
> (1)     Object + locative (affirmative)
>
>         a.      ba      ké      lídzil  N-kE    ìzOOn
>                 they    put     food    in      pot
>                  'they put food in a pot'
>
>         b.      *ba     N-kE    ìzOOn   lídzil   ké
>
> (2)     Object + locative (negative)
>
>         a.      bE      lídzil  N-kE    ìzOOn   bE      áaà     ké
>                 they    food    in      pot     they    neg     put
>                  'they didn't put food in a pot
>
>         b.      *bE     ké     lídzil   N-kE    ìzOOn   bE  áaà ké
>
> As also seen, subject marking is different (except for tone, the bE
> 'they' in the negative is identical to the object pronoun bE in fact).
>
> We also can prepose from a serialized or embedded clause in the negative:
>
> mm       vONi  taa   n   dEi  gedze
> 1sg-neg  want  that 1sg  buy  yams      'I don't want to buy yams'
>
> OR (alternative):
>
> gedze  mm    vONi taa   n   dEi
> yams 1sg-neg want that 1sg  buy
>
> (but not *yams I want that I buy)
>
> Our best hypothesis is that there once was a negative verb in second
> position, which does appear (as bi) in non-root subordinate clauses,
> e.g. relatives:
>
> badum  sE  akE  ba   bi  lidzil  N-kE  izOOn  bE   aà  ke
> men  the   REL they NEG  food     in    pot   they neg put
> 'the men who didn't put food in the pot'
>
> It could therefore be that the original second-position negative verb
> fell out in main clauses only.
>
> Does anyone know of any parallels to this SVO vs. SOV ordering having
> to do with negation (or anything else that "rings a bell"?). Let me
> know if anyone would like more information--there's A LOT more going
> on!
>
> Thanks very much.
>
> Larry
> --
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
>
> Larry M. Hyman                                 Tel:   (510) 643-7619
> Professor & Chairman (through June 30, 2002)   Dept.: (510) 642-2757
> Department of Linguistics                      Fax.:  (510) 643-5688
> University of California, Berkeley CA 94720
> http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/CBOLD/