ESPESYAL NA KURSO SA PONETIKA, PONOLOHIYA,

ORTOGRAPIYA AT MORPOSINTAKSIS NG MGA WIKA SA
PILIPINAS
Unibersidad ng Pilipinas-Baguio, Oktubre 15-25, 2007
PAKSA 3: SUNURAN NG MGA SALITA (Word Order). [Hango
sa mga babasahin ni Thompson sa Ling 109/209]
Why are those two word orders so rare?
- because speakers tend to prefer clauses in which S or A
(which are usually "known" information) comes before O (which is
usually "new" information)1
AOP (= Predicate-final)

- two prototypical types of clauses in every languages: Yavapai (Yuman, Arizona)

Intransitive Clauses (with ____ Argument) qwaqa - che pahmi 'ukyum

deer - NOM man saw
S = the single Arguments that goes with a 1 - 'The deer saw the man'
Argument predicate
Japanese:
- Transitive clauses (with ____ Arguments)
sono gakusei - tati wa zi o kaki - masu
A = the AGENT (the one who carries out the action) that student - PL TOP char.ACC write - POLITE
'Those students write characters'
O = the PATIENT (the one that gets acted upon)
Characteristic tendencies of AOP languages
For transitive clauses, what are the possible word orders in the
languages of the world? - tend to have suffixes rather than prefixes
- adposition type = postposition
- in English, the normal transitive word order is: ________
APO (= Predicate-medial)
Sally likes banana ice cream
_____ _____ ________ English: Sally re-write-s her linguistics papers

Interestingly, there are six logically possible orderings of A-P-O, but Swahili ( ___________, ___________________________________)
only four typically occur in languages of the world.
mgonjwa a - taka chakula
AOP -------> 50% (P-final) rare: OAP sick:man 3SG - want food
APO --------> 40% (P- medial) OPA _____________________________
PAO )
POA ) 10% (P-initial) Characteristic tendencies of AOP languages

*(Flexible word order) 1

POA order runs counter to this tendency, but notice that it usually alternates with
PAO.
 2.1 This means that when we talk about word order, we first
- tend to have both prefixes and suffixes look at transitive clauses with two lexical arguments, the A
- word order tends to be strict (see below) and the O

PAO ~ POA (= Predicate - ______________________} - then we consider the order of S and P in the intransitive
clauses
(Most (though not all) Predicate-initial languages have both PAO and
POA clauses.) - we expect the order of A and P in the transitive clauses to
match the order of S and P in intransitive clauses - so:
Malagasy (_________________________, ___________________)
- in an AOP language, we would expect an intransitive
nahita alika Rashu clause to have the order _______
PST:see dog Rasoa - in an APO language, we would expect an intransitive
____ ____ _____ clause to have the order _______
'Rasoa saw a/the dog' - in an PAO-POA language, we would expect an
intransitive clause to have the order _______
Irish (________, ______________)
2.2 This also means that if A, S, or O are pronouns, we have
leann na sagairt na leabhair to be careful, why?
read:PRES the priests the books
______ ______ __________ - because in some languages pronouns have a different word
_______________________________________ order from lexical NPs:

What are the important points to keep in mind in considering a French:

language's clause word order?
Jeanne aime les chien - s
1. A language is said to have a STRICT word order if that word Jeanne likes ART dog - PL
order is used to the exclusion of other possible orders for 'normal' _____ ____ ______________
declarative clauses (see below). 'Jeannie like dogs'

- Note that this means that Predicate-initial languages Jeanne les aime
typically __________ strict word order languages, because Jeanne them likes
most Predicate-inital languages have both _____ ____ ____
_______________________ clauses (p. 2). 'Jeannie likes them'

2. The word order for a given language is easiest to figure out if we - So in considering the word order of a language, we always have to
have lexical Noun Phrases for both 'A' and 'O'. take into account whether the arguments are lexical Noun Phrases or
pronouns.

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 - in some languages lexical Noun Phrases and pronouns have sleep - PRES - 3SG:M
the same word order (like _________________) 'he's sleeping'

- in some languages lexical Noun Phrases and pronouns have - we don't say that this clause has PS word order
different word orders (like _____________) because: _________________________

3. When we talk about clause word order, we're talking about 'normal' - This means that if an Argument is marked on the verb, we
declarative clause types. can't use that morpheme to determine word order!

- non-prototypical, 'pragmatically special' clauses may disrupt 5. These word order generalizations typically don't mention oblique
the 'normal' order NPs, whose position may vary from one language to another, and may
also be variable within one language. In working with word order,
- e.g., English questions you can generally ignore the position of oblique NPs unless you're
asked about it.
we love burritos
___ ___ ______ Hebrew: ani xadaš be-xayfa
1SG new:M:SG LOC-Haifa
what do we love? ___ _________ _________
____ ___ ___ ____ __________________________________

- or in English we can say German: der mann trank den kaffee

ART:DEF man drink:PST ART:DEF
ice cream I like ______________ ______ _________
________ __ ____ in seinem auto
LOC 3SG:POSS car
- but this is pragmatically special, and not prototypical ___________________
for the word of English ___________________________________

4. When we talk about clause “word order”, we mean the order of Cantonese: ngoh tung kui sik min
separate, independent words ISG with 3SG eat noodle
____ ___________ _____ ______
- “word order” does NOT refer to the order of morphemes _______________________________
within a word
- i.e., “word order” does NOT refer to the relationship 6. In languages with a copula morpheme, we can ignore the copula
between roots and affixes morpheme in talking about word order:

- Tamil (Dravidian, _________________) Japanese: watashi wa gakusei desu

1SG TOP student COP
tuunku - kir - aan __________ ______
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 ______________________________ ___________________ _____________________

kono tabemono wa oishii desu 3. Num + Noun 3. Noun + Num

DEM:PROX food TOP tasty COP yedi adam vi - kapu viwili
_____________________________________ seven man PL - basket two
___________________ _____________________
- So Japanese is still a Predicate- ________ language (and
this isn't affected by the copula coming after the 4. Possessor + Noun2 4. Noun + Possessor
____________) uzman - in raporu kiti cha Hamisi
expert - GEN report chair GEN Hamisi
___________________ ______________________
Are there other word order regularities in addition to the order of
A, S, and O plus the Predicate? 5. Rel CI + Noun 5. Noun + Rel CI
oynayan cocuklar mtu anayesoma
YES: many studies have shown that for many languages certain who:were:playing children man who:is:reading
Word Order Correlates may be obeyed. _________________________ ________________________

– That is, there are correlations between the order of the P - There are two other correlates that don't have to do with the
and the O in a language and the order of the elements order of elements in the Noun Phrase:
within Noun Phrases in that language.
6. Noun + Postposition 6. Preposition + Noun
– For these languages, the order of the P and the koye dogru katika nyumba
O in a language PREDICTS the order of village towards in house
elements within the Noun Phrase in that ___________________ ___________________
language.
7. Yes-No Questions with final Q 7. Yes-No Questions with
O - P (Predicate- _______) (____) P - O (Predicate-Medial particle sentence-initial word (as in
________OP________ (Turkish) (____) or Predicate-Initial English) or with just
(____, ____) intonation (as in Swahili)
______PO_______ (Swahili)
git -ti mi mgonjwa a - taka chakula
1. Attrib.Adj + Noun 1. Noun + Attrib. Adj 3SG:go-PST Q sick:man 3SG-want food
cesur adam mtu mvivu _______________________ ________________________
brave man man lazy
___________________ ____________________ SO: Turkish and Swahili __________ languages which follow the
Word Order Correlates.
2. Det + Noun 2. Noun + Det
bu kitab yai lile 2
Note that this correlate is about the order of two separate words, a Possessor
this book egg that word and a Noun, not about the order of a root and a GENITIVE affix! Possessor
words may be made up of a root plus a genitive affix.
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BUT: Not all languages follow the Word Order Correlates.
- Predicate-final languages usually follow the correlates the
best
- Predicate-medial and Predicate-initial languages often don't
follow them very well
- Indo-European languages happen to follow the correlates
rather rather poorly
- for correlates 6 and 7, the explanation is more historical and
cognitive
Are there languages with no grammatically fixed clause order?
Yes.
'Flexible' word order languages: those whose word order is not
grammatically fixed, but varies according to pragmatic factors
- like 'known vs. new information'

- For example, English fails to follow them with respect to Cayuga (Iroquoian, Ontario)
correlates ___________________________________.
- new information is placed early in the clause, whether it's A,
- why is English so apparently inconsistent? O, or P

- we say that a language doesn't obey the Word Order - known information is placed late in the clause, whether it's
Correlates if there's even one correlate that it doesn't obey A, O, or P

- this means we have to look at each example in the katsihwa' kihsa:s

Homework to know whether a language follows the Word hammer 1SG:seek
Order correlates or not _________ _______
____________________________ (said in the hardware store)
Why do many languages obey these word order correlates?
to: ti' nika:nó:' nė:kyė katsįwa'?
- for correlates 1-5, it's a correlation between the certain how then then 3SG:costs this hammer
aspects of the 'macro'-structure (the clause) and the 'micro'-structure ______________ _________ ________________
(the NP) ____________________________________________
(holding a specific hammer)
- let's introduce the terms 'Specifier' for syntax that goes with
a Noun in a Noun Phrase: Ngandi (Australian)

macro/clause: O P is parallel to micro/NP: Specifier N - new information is placed early in the clause, whether it's A,
O, or P
macro/clause: P O is parallel to micro/NP: N Specifier
From a story about cooking yams:
- the 'micro' structure of the NP __________________ the
'macro' structure of the clause
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 majalma barma - ma - ni3 3. Kumar aintu nalla caTTai - kaL vaank - in - aan
yams 3PL - get - PRES Kumar five nice shirt - PL buy - PRES
_________ (___) - ____________ _____ __________________________ _____________
'they get yams' _____________________________________________________

majabolkduni magula? - nutayi - yuŋ 4. inta paiyan nallav - aan

comes:off skin - its - ABS4 this nice -
______________ _______________________ _______________ _______________________
'their skins come off' This boy is nice.

barma - geyk barma - geyk magula? - yuŋ ACC = ______________ (= Object); T = retroflex t; L = retroflex I
3PL - throw 3PL - throw skin - ABS
_________________________ ________________ ________________________________________________________
____________________________________________ _

- so the clause word order of A, P, and O in Ngandi is not
fixed, as it is in Swahili or Turkish, but depends on where the
______ information is in the clause.
Practice problem:
I. Tamil (_____________________, _______________________)
A. Identify the Predicate, the Subject, and the Object (if there is one)
in each example.
B. Consider the evidence in each example and state whether Tamil has
a strict word order. Do the orders for the transitive and intransitive
clauses match?
C. Then show what each example tells us about whether Tamil
follows the Word Order Correlates.

1. vaakkiil pustakatt – ai paTi - tt - aan

lawyer book - ACC read - PST - 3SGM
_______ ______________ _______________
The lawyer read the book

2. itu ante paiyan - ukke pennu

this that boy - GEN pen
____ __________________________
This is that boy's pen

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What's the word order of this clause, then? ____________ (not _____________,
because if an Argument is _____________________, it doesn't count for word
order.
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ABS = 'absolutive', a case marker we'll look at next week.
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