Abstract
<p>We investigate one part of Kavalan grammar: the relative order of adverbial and pronominal clitics. Of typological and theoretical import is the order within certain clusters of clitics. Transitive ordering has been defined, for a sequence of three morphemes—call them <em>X, Y,</em> and <em>Z</em>—as <em>XY, YZ, XZ,</em> and <em>XYZ</em> (Ryan 2010:785). By contrast, nontransitive ordering, involving the same three items, would be a situation where “(a) morpheme <em>X</em> must precede<em> Y</em>, (b) <em>Y</em> must precede <em>Z</em>, but (c) <em>X</em> must follow (or optionally follows) <em>Z</em>” (Ryan 2010:780). Whereas Kavalan does not attest the aforementioned kind of nontransitivity, this language does show another kind: <em>XY, YZ,</em> and <em>XZ</em>, but either <em>XYZ</em> or <em>XZY</em>. The transitive order <em>XYZ</em> is apparently in free variation with the nontransitive order <em>XZY</em>.</p>
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