Abstract
Current research on synchronic word order universals has been most influenced by the work of Joseph Greenberg and by Theo Vennemann, whose work draws extensively on that of Winfred Lehmann. This chapter discusses their contributions, as a background to the reformulated word order universals. Joseph Greenberg is to be credited with the collection of an impressive body of data and with the formulation of a large number of word order universals. Theo Vennemann, following Winfred Lehmann, has proposed a general organizing principle for these word order universals that has some explanatory value. However, this principle has more exceptions than does the original body of universals proposed by Joseph Greenberg and Theo Vennemann, in his more recent work, no longer claims that his principle has much descriptive power. There are also interesting differences in language frequencies that are not being accounted for.
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