Verb-initial Order Research Articles

Negation and Verb-initial Order in Old English Main Clauses

This study investigates two Old English (OE) constructions: “negative inversion” (a negated main clause with a clause-initial verb), and “narrative inversion” (a non-negated main clause with a clause-initial verb). The aim is to determine whether the two patterns may be treated as related “constructions” in Construction Grammar terms, and to identify the factors which promote the use of negative inversion in OE prose. The study shows that in both cases there is a strong interaction between syntax and lexicon: the choice between negative inversion and other patterns in negated main clauses as well as the difference between negative and narrative inversion is to a great extent lexically-based. The analysis also points to other variables underlying this variation such as text type and the use of direct speech. The corpus-based analysis provides a solid empirical basis for the claim that negative inversion and narrative inversion represent two separate constructions, functioning independently in the OE system.

Old English verbs of saying and verb-initial order

OE verb-initial main clauses are associated with a number of stylistic functions and they are said to co-occur with specific verb types, including verbs of saying (Mitchell 1985; Petrova 2006; Ohkado 2005). It has also been observed that the general frequency of the V-1 pattern in OE is text-specific and that the structure is exceptionally well represented in Bede (Calle-Martín & Miranda-García 2010; Ohkado 2000; Mitchell 1985). Latin influence has been suggested as a possible explanation for the high frequency of V-1 in this text, but this hypothesis has never been tested (Ohkado 2000). The aim of this study is to analyse V-1 main clauses containing verbs of saying in order to determine the motivation for the use of the pattern in OE and the possibility of foreign influence on the Bede translation. The analysis shows that OE V-1 clauses with verbs of saying are to a great extent lexically recurrent formulas used for turn-taking in conversations as well as marking transition in a story, and that their frequent use in the OE Bede is only partly influenced by the source text.

The sixteenth-century Bible translations and the development of Welsh literary prose style

ABSTRACTThe traditional view of the language of the sixteenth-century Welsh Bible translations as unnatural and conservative in having predominantly subject-verb, in contrast to the verb-initial word order of Modern Welsh, is essentially incorrect. This article shows that poetic books of the sixteenth-century Bible translations (e.g. Psalms, Song of Songs, Isaiah) were the first continuous Welsh prose texts to use frequent verb-initial order in affirmative main clauses and may have contributed to the development of a new literary prose style, characterized by frequent verb-initial word order. The translators may have adopted verb-initial word order from poetry, where it was common, to recreate a poetic quality in a prose translation of the original Hebrew poetry, reflecting a simultaneously domesticating and foreignizing strategy, in that it exploits a native linguistic feature in a novel way to reproduce exotic stylistic effects of the source text.

Word order affects the time course of sentence formulation in Tzeltal

The scope of planning during sentence formulation is known to be flexible, as it can be influenced by speakers' communicative goals and language production pressures (among other factors). Two eye-tracked picture description experiments tested whether the time course of formulation is also modulated by grammatical structure and thus whether differences in linear word order across languages affect the breadth and order of conceptual and linguistic encoding operations. Native speakers of Tzeltal [a primarily verb–object–subject (VOS) language] and Dutch [a subject–verb–object (SVO) language] described pictures of transitive events. Analyses compared speakers' choice of sentence structure across events with more accessible and less accessible characters as well as the time course of formulation for sentences with different word orders. Character accessibility influenced subject selection in both languages in subject-initial and subject-final sentences, ruling against a radically incremental formulation process. In Tzeltal, subject-initial word orders were preferred over verb-initial orders when event characters had matching animacy features, suggesting a possible role for similarity-based interference in influencing word order choice. Time course analyses revealed a strong effect of sentence structure on formulation: In subject-initial sentences, in both Tzeltal and Dutch, event characters were largely fixated sequentially, while in verb-initial sentences in Tzeltal, relational information received priority over encoding of either character during the earliest stages of formulation. The results show a tight parallelism between grammatical structure and the order of encoding operations carried out during sentence formulation.

Austronesian and theoretical linguistics (review)

Reviewed by: Austronesian and theoretical linguistics Paul Kroeger Austronesian and theoretical linguistics. Ed. by Raphael Mercado, Eric Potsdam, and Lisa de Mena Travis. (Linguistics today 167.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2010. Pp. vii, 379. ISBN 9789027255501. $158 (Hb). Theoretical phonologists have always used a considerable amount of Austronesian data, particularly in connection with work on nasality and reduplication. During the first several decades of the generative era, however, the formal syntax community paid far less attention to Austronesian than the size, typological variety, and geographical extent of the family would seem to warrant. Two significant events helped to amend this situation. One was the publication of Guilfoyle, Hung, & Travis 1992, the first credible attempt within the principles-and-parameters framework to deal with nondemoting, Philippine-type voice systems. The other was the formation, in 1994, of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (AFLA). The papers in this volume represent a selection of those presented at the 14th annual AFLA conference, held in May of 2007 at McGill University. From among the thirty papers and eleven posters presented at the conference, the editors chose five phonology and twelve syntax papers for publication. These papers offer a representative sample of the issues of current interest within Austronesian formal linguistics. The sample of languages is fairly well balanced among Oceanic, Formosan, and Western Malayo-Polynesian; Malagasy and Tagalog are represented, but do not dominate the line-up as they have in some previous AFLA conferences. This is a handsome and well-edited volume, and the papers are generally well written and full of interesting data. But in my mind, what makes these papers so valuable is that they are written by formalists who are also language experts. The discussions of theoretical issues are based on detailed knowledge of the languages being discussed. One recurring topic of discussion in recent years has been how to reconcile the surface word-order properties of various Austronesian languages with the universal underlying structure posited by Kayne’s (1994) antisymmetry hypothesis, and with Cinque’s (1999, 2005) proposals concerning the universal ordering of adverbial elements and adjectives. The challenge is particularly acute with regard to certain verb-initial members of the family.1 Diane Massam, in ‘Deriving inverse order: The issue of arguments’ (271–96), addresses both the order of arguments (relative to the verb and to each other) and the order of adverbial elements in Niuean. She summarizes her earlier analysis of VSO order as resulting from remnant VP-movement. She then considers the ordering of adverbial particles, which is (approximately) the reverse of the underlying order posited by Cinque. It has been claimed that inverse ordering of adverbials correlates with verb-initial order, and that this correlation can be accounted for by assuming that adverbs arrive in their surface position by ‘roll-up movement’. Massam supports this view, but points out that in Niuean, this analysis runs into technical difficulties under normal assumptions about the underlying (merged) positions of internal arguments. She argues that in Niuean, all arguments must merge outside the VP, as specifiers of functional heads. [End Page 206] Similar issues are addressed by Elizabeth Pearce, in ‘Possession syntax in Unua DPs’ (141–62). The inventory of possessive constructions in Unua is not as complex as in some other Oceanic languages, but there is a syntactically significant contrast between direct and indirect possession, correlating roughly with alienable versus inalienable possession but not fully predictable on semantic grounds. Pearce argues for the very plausible claim that direct possessor nouns subcategorize for a possessor DP, which is a complement of N, whereas possessors of indirect possessor nouns are adjuncts and occupy a higher syntactic position. She also argues for iterative phrasal movement (‘roll-up’) as a way of accounting for the mirror-image ordering of adjectives and other elements within the DP, relative to Cinque’s model. But for Unua, this analysis works best under the assumption that all complements actually merge in specifier positions. Mara Frascarelli, in ‘Intonation, information structure and the derivation of inverse VO languages’ (81–102), analyzes the prosodic and information structures of recorded sentences in Tagalog and Malagasy, and argues that the results obtained support the vP...

Verb-second, particles, and flexible verb-initial orders

This paper focuses on the analysis of languages that allow both VSO and VOS orders. An analysis is proposed in the context of a flexible approach to syntax (cf. Neeleman, A., Weerman, F., 1999. Flexible Syntax: A Theory of Case and Arguments. Kluwer, Dordrecht) and compared with different alternative analyses of VSO–VOS alternations. The major argument is that a flexible approach allows for an analysis of VSO–VOS alternation that is appealing because of its simplicity and because of a number of predictions. The most important predictions are that languages with VSO–VOS alternation should have preverbal particles and that the subject should c-command the object in both VSO and VOS clauses. It is argued that three VSO–VOS languages (St’át’imcets (Lillooet Salish), Chamorro and Tongan) conform to these predictions.

Deriving the Verb-Initial Order (A. Carnie, H. Harley and S. A. Dooley (eds.), Verb First: On the Syntax of Verb-Initial Languages)

Deriving the Verb-Initial Order (A. Carnie, H. Harley and S. A. Dooley (eds.), Verb First: On the Syntax of Verb-Initial Languages)

Verb position in future clauses in Biblical Hebrew

ABSTRACTIn clauses with future meaning in Biblical Hebrew, a basically VSO language, there are consistent functional differences between clauses with verb-initial word order and clauses with non-verb-initial word order. Quantitative study shows that verb-initial clauses are associated with future events that come about through cooperation between (some combination of) the speaker, the listener, and God, whereas non-verb-initial clauses are associated with future events that are the result of unilateral action. This is related to the finding of Givón (1977) that, in clauses with past time reference in Biblical Hebrew, verb-initial order is associated with the unmarked function of temporal sequencing and continuity of the narrative, whereas non-verb-initial order is associated with a break in sequencing and discontinuity. If we take verb-initial order as generally associated with unmarked discourse functions, these data suggest that cooperation represents the unmarked expectation in dialogues about the future in the same way that sequencing represents the unmarked expectation in narratives about the past.

Studies in the nominal sentence in Egyptian and Coptic By J[ohn] B. Callender (review)

BOOK NOTICES 221 stantial French/English summaries. [Gary Bevington, Northeastern Illinois University.] Studies in the nominal sentence in Egyptian and Coptic. By J[ohn] B. Callender. (University of California publications in Near Eastern studies, 24.) Berkeley & Los Angeles : University of California Press, 1984. Pp. ix, 221. $21.00. Languages of long ago are of interest to the layman as matters of pure curiosity, and to the linguist as a testing-ground for synchronic and diachronic theory. Unfortunately the data on such languages are, forthe most part, accessible only to specialists. In the case of Egyptian, the writing systems are restricted mainly to consonants , imposing a severe limitation on their interpretabiUty. AU this means that studies which do not require speciaUst knowledge ofthe writing systems, and which deal with manageable chunks of Egyptian grammar, are particularly welcome. Slightly more than halfofCaUender's volume deals with Coptic, the successor to epigraphic Egyptian. C presents what is essentiaUy a catalog of forms and functions through time, specificaUy for 'sentences in which the predicate (nominal) was a noun' (p. 2). The property of specificity turns out to be very important. (Here, an important source not mentioned by Callender is D. Bickerton, The roots of language , Karoma, 1981.) What a wealth of data and examples C presents! He is less successful in explaining the occurrences and developments of the various constructions—partly for lack of a consistent and sophisticated theoretical basis, and perhaps more because the topic is still not adequately handled by any theory. The book is marred by surprising unevenness in production. The programmed offset text with justified margins has too many annoying cases of run-on letters and words—or the opposite, large white spaces. Typos abound (e.g., p. 8, Unes 4-7, incomplete sentence with conclusion dropped; p. 10, Une 15, 'between' is missing; p. 25, Une 5 up, 'Table 3', not 'Table 4'; p. 41, Une 2, 'contrastive', not 'contractive' stress). There is also ajarring overkiU in Cs level ofapproach; e.g., a full page (119) is used to present a tree diagram of 'John is a man,' and an appendix is included tojustify the use of'subject' and 'predicate ' as technical terms. AnomaUes occur; the use of 'congruence' for 'agreement' in some places but not others; complete lack of reference to the important work of C. T. Hodge on Egyptian; and omission of the oft-cited Junge 1978 from the bibliography (which does contain Junge 1976, 1976b—one suspects haste here, as perhaps elsewhere in the text). One hopes that the examples and glosses are more accurate than the narrative text. In short, this book is a promising, if flawed, beginning in an area of great interest, both in terms of the languages (Egyptian, Coptic) and the topics (basically non-verbal and copular sentences ). The lucid discussion ofthe complex history of Egyptian/Coptic varieties, mainly in the copious notes, is a much appreciated fringe benefit . [M. Lionel Bender, Southern Illinois University.] The function of word order in Turkish grammar. By Eser Emine ErguVANLi . (University of California publications in linguistics, 106.) Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984. Pp. xii, 179. $15.00. Turkish is often cited as an example of a canonical SOV language. Yet in a study of adult spoken Turkish by D. Slobin (cited by E, p. 2), only 48% of utterances showed SOV order; indeed , only 56% showed verb-final order, while 6% actually showed verb-initial order. How is the alleged SOV nature of Turkish to be reconcUed with these findings? In E's detailed analysis of word order in Turkish, she does not abandon over-aU basic verb-final structure, but investigates in detail the various factors—in particular pragmatic factors (topic/comment structure)—that determine variations from verb-finality. The core of E's exposition is formed by Chs. 1-2, which examine word order in simplex sentences . Ch. 1 establishes that the position of constituents before the verb is determined by two main principles: the topic of the sentence appears clause-initially, while the focus (essential new information) appears in immediate preverbal position. In Ch. 2, E demonstrates that the position after the verb is reserved for background information. Ch. 3 examines...