SOV original word order?

[Peter Bakker]

Dear typologists,

This rather amazing news item:

http://news.yahoo.com/original-human-language-yoda-sounded-201403614.html 

appeared to be based on this article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:


The origin and evolution of word order

[ http://www.pnas.org/search?author1=Murray+Gell-Mann&sortspec=date&submit=Submit ]Murray Gell-Mann
[ http://www.pnas.org/search?author1=Merritt+Ruhlen&sortspec=date&submit=Submit ]Merritt Ruhlen
Contributed by Murray Gell-Mann, August 26, 2011 (sent for review August 19, 2011)
Published online before print October 10, 2011, doi:10.1073/pnas.1113716108
PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. October 10, 2011 

This is the abstract:

Abstract
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) The word order in the ancestral language was SOV. (ii) 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. (iii) Diffusion, although important, is not the dominant process in the evolution of word order. (iv) The two extremely rare word orders (OVS and OSV) derive
directly from SOV.


I thought this article could be both interesting and surprising for students of word order typology.

Peter Bakker


Peter Bakker                                                                     email:  linpb at hum.au.dk
Department of Linguistics                                                 tel. (45) 8942.6553
Inst. for Anthropology, Archaeology and Linguistics       
Aarhus University                                                             tel. institute: (0045)8942.6562 
Nordre Ringgade, building 1410                                         fax institute:  (0045)8942.6570
DK - 8000 Aarhus C                                                          room 340   

home page: http://person.au.dk/en/linpb@hum.au.dk                    




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