Surface Word-Order Typology and Universal Grammar

Abstract

This paper criticizes the view of Hawkins (1979, 1980, 1982) that the theory of Universal Grammar must include implicational and distributional universals of word order. It shows that universals based on frequency counts of surface word order-as worked out, e.g., by Greenberg 1966-need to be reformulated in order to be relevant to the problem of language acquisition. More specifically, it discusses H's claim that the principle of CrossCategory Harmony can shed light on the proper formulations of the X' schemas of generative grammar. Finally, it is shown how survey studies of word order can be relevant to forming initial hypotheses about certain properties of grammar, and how the study of language typology might proceed within the generative framework.*