[Lingtyp] AV / VS languages

[Spike Gildea]

Dear David,

Makushi (Cariban; Abbott 1990), plus closely-related Akawaio (Caesar-Fox 2003) and Pemón (unpublished data — probably José Álvarez has published something on this) have a tight VP that contains either P or S, which occurs preverbally. In transitive clauses, the canonical location of A is post-VP, which gives pretty rigid orders SV / PVA (adding in constituency, [SV]/[OV]A). The same pattern arose independently in the Upper Xingu Carib Language (a.k.a Kuikuro, Kalapalo, cf. Franchetto 1990, 2010). The historical origins of this pattern are given in Gildea (2000).

Best,
Spike

Abbott, Miriam. 1991. Macushi. In Derbyshire, Desmond C. & Geoffrey K. Pullum (eds.). Handbook of Amazonian Languages, Vol. 3, 23-160. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Caesar-Fox, Desrey. 2003. Zauro'nödok Agawayo Yau: variants of Akawaio spoken at Waramadong. Houston, TX: Rice University doctoral dissertation.

Franchetto, Bruna. 1990. Ergativity and nominativity in Kuikúro and other Carib languages. In Doris L/ Payne (ed). Amazonian Linguistics: Studies in Lowland South American Languages, 407-428. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Franchetto, Bruna. 2010. The ergativity effect in Kuikuro (Southern Carib, Brazil). In Spike Gildea & Francesc Queixalós (eds). Ergativity in Amazonia, 121-158. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Gildea, Spike. 2000.  On the genesis of the verb phrase in Cariban languages: Diversity through reanalysis.  Reconstructing Grammar: Comparative Linguistics and Grammaticalization Theory, Typological Studies in Language, v. 43, ed. by Spike Gildea, 65-106.  Amsterdam: John Benjamins.


From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Riccardo Giomi via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Date: Friday, November 15, 2024 at 9:18 AM
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>, David Beck <dbeck at ualberta.ca>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] AV / VS languages
Dear David,

The best example I can cite off the top of my head is Muna (Austronesian), as described in van den Berg's grammar, sections 7.1 and 7.3

Berg, René van den. 1989.  A Grammar of the Muna Language. (Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 139.) Dordrecht: Foris.

The author gives a good wealth of examples to prove their point that, despite quite some variation, the "basic" orders are VS and SVO. I don't know if this counts as "relatively fixed" constituent order (maybe not, indeed), but you may want to have a look anyway.

Hope this helps!
Riccardo

Riccardo Giomi
Assistant Professor of Functional Linguistics
University of Amsterdam
Faculty of Humanities: Department of Linguistics
Spuistraat 134, 1012 VB, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
________________________________
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of David Beck via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Sent: 15 November 2024 18:00
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: [Lingtyp] AV / VS languages

Hi, all

Can anyone point me to some good descriptions of languages with relatively fixed constituent order that have S on the opposite side of the verb from A? Grammars would be preferable, but papers with solid and believable examples would also work.

Cheers,

David
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