Command and Order by Type Substitution: Another Way to Look at Word Order

Abstract

Typed conception of surface-command and LF-command reveals a unique degree of freedom for specifying a verb in its combinatory capacity. It naturally brings in the question of word order in relation to its semantics. We exemplify from the Turkish verb and verbs of three other languages with different word order behavior. The differences are explainable in syntax if we assume that surface-command and LF-command are free to vary in a lexical correspondence, and that being the head of a construction also means determining its semantics. Turkish verbs are not heads of any construction; word-order variation has semantics arising from metrical grid and autonomous phonological events. Welsh verbs are heads of relativization; as such their logical forms must be different than their plain semantics. European Portuguese treats referentially dependent and independent arguments of the verb differently, exploiting word order for them but not to the extent of requiring a different category for the verb; therefore its word order is a complex interaction of referentiality and information structure. Tagalog leaves thematic structure and basic word order to voice rather than determine them in the verb root, which implies symmetry in the syntax of unvoiced verbs and asymmetry in others. These implications are not exceptions that require extra measures in grammar. They are made clear for the linguist and the child by a unique degree of freedom in CCG.