SOV original word order?

[Randy LaPolla]

I personally think the whole methodology of word order studies, as done in the Greenbergian framework, and even the use of “SOV” etc. in describing languages is unscientific (and so don’t teach it when I teach typology), but the work by this group is particularly problematic. As a regular reader of PNAS, though, it is actually not shocking to me that PNAS would publish such an article.

LaPolla, Randy J. 2002. "Problems of Methodology and Explanation in Word Order Universals Research ", Dongfang Yuyan yu Wenhua (Languages and Cultures of the East), ed. by Pan Wuyun, 204-237. Shanghai: Dongfang Chuban Zhongxin, Feb. 2002.
<http://tibeto-burman.net/rjlapolla/papers/stwo.pdf>

LaPolla, Randy J. & Dory Poa. 2006. “On Describing Word Order”. Catching Language: The Standing Challenge of Grammar Writing, ed. by Felix Ameka, Alan Dench, & Nicholas Evans, 269-295. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
 <http://tibeto-burman.net/rjlapolla/papers/describingwo.pdf>

Randy

---
Randy J. LaPolla, PhD FAHA
Professor (Chair) of Linguistics
La Trobe University
VIC 3086 AUSTRALIA

Personal site: http://tibeto-burman.net/rjlapolla/
RCLT: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/rclt/
The Tibeto-Burman Domain: http://tibeto-burman.net/
Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area: http://stedt.berkeley.edu/ltba/


________________________________
From: Peter Bakker <linpb at hum.au.dk>
Reply-To: Peter Bakker <linpb at hum.au.dk>
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2011 07:13:04 +1100
To: "LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG" <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Subject: SOV original word order?

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

Murray Gell-Mann <http://www.pnas.org/search?author1=Murray+Gell-Mann&sortspec=date&submit=Submit>
Merritt Ruhlen <http://www.pnas.org/search?author1=Merritt+Ruhlen&sortspec=date&submit=Submit>

 1.  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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