Word Order Patterns Research Articles

Argument placement in Faroese

This article gives a summary of the Faroese data concerning argument placement in the Nordic Word order Database (NWD). Special emphasis is put on carefully describing the different conditions tested in the argument placement experiment, the experimental set-up, and the demographic information of the participants. An overview of relevant parts of Faroese grammar is also given, as well as a summary of the word order patterns found in the Faroese data present in the database. Finally, we discuss how the data in the database provides new insights to the grammar of Faroese, and how the data patterns in Faroese differ from the patterns observed in the other North Germanic languages.

Verb placement in embedded sentences in Faroese

In this article, I present data from the Nordic Word order Database (NWD) on word order in Faroese embedded clauses. I discuss the methods used in the data elicitation, data analysis, and present a first overview of the patterns in the dataset. The NWD contains a total of 4,752 embedded clauses elicited from 33 native Faroese speakers, focussing on embedded wh-questions, and the placement of the finite verb with respect to adverbs in different types of complements. The results from the Faroese fieldwork largely confirm the word order patterns discussed in the literature. There is very little variation in the word order of embeddded wh-questions in the NWD-data. Verb > Adverb order is most common in declarative bridge-verb complements, whereas non-bridge, and wh-complements disfavour this order.

Word and Sentence Power: How Much Does It Matter In Mathematical Problem Solving

English language skills are perceived to be inversely correlated with mathematics proficiency. This forethought attunes with the traditional perception on language and mathematics education which is the locus of this study. In particular, word order and basic sentence patterns are specific language skills which in this study are investigated for significant influence on the mathematical problem solving proficiency of the first year secondary teacher education students of Nueva Vizcaya State University- Bambang Campus, Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya. This educational endeavor which made use of descriptive design and involved 44 respondents disclosed the level of proficiency of the respondents in the three factors which form vertices of the triangle of focal variables: word order, basic sentence pattern and mathematical solving skills. Significant relationship transpired between the two language skills in here cited and significant influence of both language skills on mathematical problem solving proficiency. These results urged more relevant reading activities to enhance the respondents’ language skills; the use of various task-based activities; use of outcomes-based education in the English and Mathematics subjects; and other researches for the improvement of the language skills and problem solving skills of students.

Noun Phrase in Mandailing Language

This paper discusses on the rules of Noun Phrase (NP) in Mandailing language. The objectives are firstly to structurally examine the phrase structure rules (PSR) of NP in Mandailing language and to investigate the constituents of each rules in NP. The method is descriptive qualitative with a case study. The data taken from the native speakers of Mandailing language through interviewing. The data are the utterances of Mandailing language in daily conversation. The analysis is based on the use of X-Bar theory, to see how NPs in Mandailing language are hierarchically governed and presented in tree diagram. Thus, the findings showed that there are five major rules of NP in Mandailing language, (a) single noun as headword, (b) pre-modifier preceedes head noun, (c) post-modifiers follows head noun, (d) head noun between pre-modifier and post-modifier, and (e) complex NP with coordinative conjunction. Also, there is found particle na to relate NP with the complement such as AP. To summarize, Mandailing language has similar patterns of word order with Indonesia language. Overall, this research gives contribution to provide a deep understanding in studying morphosyntactic in linguistics especially phrase structures beyond the effort on exploring and revitalizing a regional language in Indonesia.

On the Controversy over Control Constructions Involving the Korean Verb seltukhata ‘To Persuade’

This research aims to address the controversy over word order patterns of control constructions of the Korean verb seltukhata (‘to persuade’) and settle it with evidence from production and corpus studies (Choi 2007; Hong & Yun 2020). The controversy, in essence, was sparked by the question of whether the constructions Cl-Acc and Acc-Cl of the verb seltukhata are syntactically related by scrambling (Cormack & Smith 2004; Polinsky et al. 2007; Hoe 2013). To answer this question, this study adopts the results of Hong & Yun (2020) concerning the word order preference in control constructions and suggests that the Acc-Cl structure is derived from the Cl-Acc through scrambling.

An analytical study of word-order patterns in Standard Arabic simple sentence

The main focus of the study is to analyze the simple sentence structure and its word-order patterns of Standard Arabic syntactically. Main methods concern description and comparison of word-order patterns observed. Primarily the current study deals with some differentiations of the terms on sentence types and word-order patterns described by both medieval grammarians and modern linguists. Moreover, the so called Sībawayhian theory of ʿamil’ also provides some explanations of sentence structures and word-order patterns in Standard Arabic. Simple sentences are highlighted to examine the occasions for using different patterns and where they are commonly found, along with examples to facilitate the explanation and use of these patterns. It is essential to point out that Standard Arabic is considered to be a language with a flexible word-order, which is why there exist word-order patterns of both VOS and SVO languages, though the latter is more frequently used.

Word Order and Agreement in Tagoi

Abstract This study provides a detailed description of word order types, agreement patterns and alternations found in Tagoi, a Kordofanian language traditionally spoken in South Kordofan. After a brief presentation of the language (section 1), the noun class system is introduced (section 2) and the word order and agreement patterns are examined at the noun phrase level (section 3). Section 4 gives information about the constituent order at clause and sentence level, while Section 5 summarizes the findings and conclusion of the paper. All in all, the paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of the grammar, structure and typological features of Tagoi.

Cognitive-functional principles and Chinese linear order

AbstractIn Modern Standard Chinese, word order patterns and constructions are motivated by factors and restrictions connected to different levels of linguistic organization, including not only semantics and syntax, but also pragmatics, information-structure, and the conceptual domain. The functional and the cognitive paradigms have offered distinct but complementary perspectives capable of accounting for word order patterns and regularities related to either the topic-prominent nature of Chinese or the iconic dimension of its grammar. This article shows how cognitive and functional aspects are in fact tightly intertwined and display significant and not yet fully explored parallelisms. Specifically, it looks into the notions of ‘frame’, ‘scope’, and ‘part’, features shared by both functional accounts of topic-comment structures and conceptually motivated word order principles. It proposes a qualitative corpus analysis of such notions and shows that first, Chinese topics are better defined in terms of frames; second, a number of word order regularities can be accounted for with a single cognitive-functional schema, which I refer to asframe-part, orframe-participant,which is connected to the image schema ofcontainment. This article hopes to contribute to bridging the gap between functional studies on information structure in Chinese and perspectives offered by the cognitive approach to linguistic structures, and to offer effective tools for Chinese as a second language acquisition.

Regular anatomical terms revisited: The simplest is often the right one

Regular anatomical (RA) terminology rules were developed to simplify and clarify Latin anatomical terms in a systematic manner. These rules, which prohibit conjunctions, prepositions, and appositions, and define a consistent word order pattern, are extensions of the original 1895 rule of anatomical nomenclature that anatomical terms should be as short and simple as possible. It is not coincidental that most terms in Terminologia Anatomica (TA), and many traditional terms that were not used in TA, are consistent with RA term rules, and that the RA term rules are also consistent with the guidelines for expanding short form terms to full, unique terms. The consistent form of RA terms facilitates learning and translation, and is easier for humans and machines to manipulate than terms that are not compliant with RA term rules. Despite assertions to the contrary, RA terms are proper Latin terms that simplify the anatomical terminology and, in many cases, restore traditional terms.

WAYS OF RENDERING FUTURE TENSE FORMS FROM KAZAKH INTO ENGLISH

(BASED ON THE NOVEL “КӨШПЕНДІЛЕР”) Abstract. The article deals with the different types of transformation used in the process of translating from Kazakh into English by applying the principle of comparison. For the principle of comparison makes it possible for us to establish differences and similarities of heterogeneous languages as far as Kazakh and English languages are syntactically, morphologically and structurally different. Moreover, a close comparative study of languages not only helps us detect peculiarities of different languages but also directs us to a deeper analysis research results. English belongs to the Germanic group of language. The Kazakh pertains to the Turkic group of the Altaic family. Concerning the morphological type English is inflected and notable for its analytical character. Kazakh is an agglutinative language. As to grammar the principle means of expression in language possessing an analytical character is the order of the words and use of words and use of function words (function words, word order and intonation pattern). The grammatical inflections are the principal means used in Kazakh. Though the rest of grammatical means are also used but they are of less frequency than the grammatical inflections.

Continuous and discontinuous nominal expressions in flexible (or “free”) word order languages: Patterns and correlates

AbstractThis study explores continuous and discontinuous word order patterns of multi-word nominal expressions in flexible word order languages (traditionally referred to as “free word order” or “non-configurational” languages). Besides describing syntagmatic patterns, this paper seeks to identify any functional or other correlates that can be associated with different word orders. The languages under investigation are a number of Australian languages as well as Vedic Sanskrit, all of which have long been known for their syntagmatic flexibility. With respect to continuous order, evidence from several of these languages suggests that default ordering is primarily governed by functional templates. Deviations from default order, while maintaining continuity, can be attributed to different types of “focus” interpretations or heaviness effects. With respect to discontinuous order, I identify three sub-types. The most widespread one, “Left-Edge Discontinuity”, involves one element placed in or near utterance-initial position. It shows a clear, if not an absolute, correlation with different kinds of focus interpretations, similarly to deviations from the default order in continuity. The other two types of discontinuity are linked to the behaviour of specific function words. Besides teasing out cross-linguistic similarities, this paper also sheds light on language-specific characteristics that affect the forms and functions of complex (i.e. multi-word) nominal expressions in flexible word order languages, such as the nature of 2nd position (“Wackernagel”) elements.

Investigating the Agrammatic Production of Canonical and Non-Canonical Sentences Cross-Linguistically

Research on agrammatism has revealed that the nature of linguistic impairment is systematic and interpretable. Non-canonical sentences are more impaired than those of canonical sentences. Previous studies on Japanese (Hiroshi et al. 2004; Chujo 1983; Tamaoka et al. 2003; Nakayama 1995) report that aphasic patients take longer Response Time (RT) and make more mistakes in producing non-canonical sentences compared to that of canonical sentences. The present research investigates the production impairments of canonical and non-canonical sentences cross-linguistically focusing on Bangla, Japanese, German and English aphasic patients. While Bangla, Japanese, German have relatively flexible word order, and hence allow freer phrasal movement, English exemplifies less freedom in word order patterns, and does not allow as much movement as the former three. We hypothesized that Bangla agrammatic patients would have more impairments in producing non-canonical sentences than those of canonical counterparts, while the production of canonical sentences is not completely devoid of impairments too. Primary data were collected from Bangla agrammatic patients, and secondary data from Japanese, German and English were exploited for cross-linguistic comparison. The findings show that Bangla agrammatic speakers have severe impairments in producing passive sentences, although the production of active ones are not completely devoid of impairments. The cross-linguistic comparison of the findings implies that the production of Bangla agrammatism tend to be similar to other agrammatic production and the production of non-canonical sentences are more difficult than those of canonical sentences cross-linguistically.

Universals of word order reflect optimization of grammars for efficient communication

The universal properties of human languages have been the subject of intense study across the language sciences. We report computational and corpus evidence for the hypothesis that a prominent subset of these universal properties-those related to word order-result from a process of optimization for efficient communication among humans, trading off the need to reduce complexity with the need to reduce ambiguity. We formalize these two pressures with information-theoretic and neural-network models of complexity and ambiguity and simulate grammars with optimized word-order parameters on large-scale data from 51 languages. Evolution of grammars toward efficiency results in word-order patterns that predict a large subset of the major word-order correlations across languages.

Przygotowanie materiałów do nauczania szyku w dydaktyce języka polskiego jako obcego: o problemach metodologicznych i praktycznych raz jeszcze

Artykuł stanowi głos w dyskusji nad rolą i kształtem procesu nauczania szyku w glottodydaktyce polonistycznej. Zawarte w nim uwagi inspirowane są pracą nad przygotowywanym podręcznikiem do nauczania szyku polszczyzny skierowanym do obcokrajowców. Część pierwsza przedstawia wybrane problemy metodologiczne i praktyczne dotyczące m.in. powiązania porządku linearnego z mówioną i pisaną odmianą języka, metajęzyka używanego w nauczaniu szyku, a także trudności z interpretowaniem poszczególnych układów linearnych jako poprawnych lub nieakceptowalnych, neutralnych lub stylistycznie nacechowanych. Podkreślono też rolę interferencji w procesie powstawania i interpretacji błędów szyku popełnianych przez obcokrajowców. Część druga odnosi się w sposób systematyczny do kwestii wymienionych wcześniej i przedstawia proponowane przez nas praktyczne rozwiązania poszczególnych problemów, możliwe do zastosowania w procesie dydaktycznym.

A cartographic approach to embedded word order in Jordanian Arabic

AbstractThis paper investigates marked and unmarked word order patterns in embedded clauses in Jordanian Arabic (JA), motivating a mono-clausal analysis of them. It shows that ‘topic’ in this Arabic dialect is not a unique category, nor susceptible to a single analysis, hence providing support for proposals that argue for topics typology. For instance, topics that express information that is newly introduced, newly changed or newly returned to, i.e. Aboutness Topic, are shown not to be licensed in JA embedded clauses. On the other hand, the study argues that topics that convey familiar information, i.e. Familiar Topic, are more constrained in embedded contexts than previously believed; they are not recursive. Such a state of affairs implies that there are no elements being assigned the same informational/communicative value in the left periphery of JA embedded clauses.

The Asturian language and the evolution of Romance clausal structure

Abstract Over the past few years, the comprehensive study of syntactic variation across both the Germanic and the Romance branches of languages in relation to the unmarked word order pattern has meant a more in-depth knowledge of the nature of the verb-second phenomenon – an extremely intricate typological concept because of the complex factors that give rise to such a word order restriction. The aim of this paper is to investigate word order phenomena in the Asturian language (Romance, Western Iberian: Spain) from a comparative perspective1 by examining the word order patterns found in a number of documents written over the course of two centuries, with a view to determining what constitutes the unmarked word order and gaining a better understanding of its core syntax. Such a study has entailed collating research on the verb-first, verb-second and subject-verb-object orders. Finally, it aims to shed more light on the evolutionary development of the Romance languages.

Contrast and word order: A case study on the history of Portuguese

Several studies have observed that older Romance languages had more frequent object-verb order than their modern counterparts. This article explores the idea that contrast is crucial to understand the shift to verb-object order, as part of a more encompassing notion of boundedness, which has been frequently associated with the V2 parameter. To do so, we first show that some fronting constructions involving demonstratives were available in Old and Classical Portuguese, but not in Modern Portuguese, as a consequence of the existence of a KP projection hosting contrastive items of different sorts acting as delimitators. Second, we present some changes between Old and Classical Portuguese: (i) a decrease in fronted objects with demonstratives; (ii) an increase in the frequency of null subjects; and (iii) a small decrease in the frequency of frame setters. We propose that these shifts are to be attributed to an information-structural change correlated with a syntactic change concerning the position of complementizers and verb movement in subordinate clauses. To wit, while Old Portuguese was a symmetrical relaxed C-V2 language, Classical Portuguese was an asymmetrical one, which is reflected in terms of a reduced left periphery of subordinate clauses in the latter, in which KP cannot be projected. The article presents some implications of this account for the derivation of basic word order patterns and of clitic interpolation in Old Portuguese and for the loss of V2 in the history of Portuguese. These results suggest that the connection between boundedness, contrast and V2 grammars can be profitably explored in Old Romance languages.

Word Order Variations in Shabaki

Word order types constitute the most well- established and frequently cited generalization in language typology. Basic or canonical word order tends to fall into two main types: SOV (about 48% of world languages) or SVO (about 41%). SOV is assumed to have been the predominant and unmarked word order in most of the oldest attested Indo-European languages, as well as in Iranian languages. This paper investigates the basic word order in Shabaki, a modern northwest language of the Indo-Iranian family spoken by the Shabaki minority in Iraq. This study also measures the word order variation and provides a typological description of this language. An examination of Shabaki data reveals that it follows SOV, OSV, SVO, VSO, OVS, and VOS word order patterns in mono-transitive sentences. The most frequent (predominant and unmarked) word order in declarative sentences in Shabaki is SOV where the initial position is occupied by a nominative noun phrase, but constituents can appear at any position, creating grammatical sentences with different discursive distributions. In ditransitive sentences, (S) DO V IO is proven to be three fold higher in number than (S) IO V DO. (S) DO IO V and (S) IO DO V were also found in data. Keywords: Agreement, basic word order, case, clitics, Indo-Iranian languages, language typology, Shabaki Introduction Grammatical relations in human languages, such as those between a noun phrase and the verb, are primarily expressed by means of three different morphosyntactic strategies: word order, case marking, and agreement (Croft 1990: 101). All languages, rather than relying on just one of these mechanisms, use some combination of the three. In this paper, it is the intention to explore what elements of these three strategies Shabaki language employs to indicate the relationship that a noun bears to the verb in a clause. It also tries to explore the order of objects in ditransitive sentences.

A cognitive-functional approach to the order of adjectives in the English noun phrase

AbstractIn this article we identify and motivate the main word order patterns of adjectives in the English NP. Theoretically, we situate ourselves within the tradition of semiotically-based, cognitive-functional construction grammars as developed by such linguists as Halliday, Langacker and McGregor. In this tradition, the lexicogrammar is assumed to exist to symbolize semantic functions. We argue that the various semantic functions of adjectives in the English NP are coded by different modification relations, which differ in terms of where and how they fit into the structural assembly of the whole NP. We hold that function motivates structure, and that order is an epiphenomenon of structure. Therefore, we first set out our model of the functions that can be fulfilled by adjectives in the English NP. This model is innovative in a number of ways. Theoretically, it extends the distinction between representational and interpersonal modifiers. Descriptively, we elucidate the traditionally recognized representational functions of classifier and epithet as well as the interpersonal functions of noun-intensifier and secondary determiner. To this set, we add the hitherto barely recognized interpersonal functions of focus marker and metadesignative. We also systematically investigate the possibility for coordination and subordination between adjectives fulfilling the same function. In a second step, we then correlate this functional-structural model with the general ordering tendencies of the functions realized by adjectives. We specify the general left-to-right ordering of the six functions, pointing out possible and impossible orders of the functions relative to each other. We interpret the distinction between representational and interpersonal modifiers with regard to their different ordering potential. Finally, we look at the main ordering options available for multiple adjectives realizing the same function.

Word order patterns in generic ‘zero person’ constructions in Finnish: Insights from speech-act participants

I suggest that seemingly puzzling word-order properties of the Finnish generic zero person construction can be explained if we acknowledge the relevance of speech-act participants (speaker/addressee) for the Finnish version of the EPP. Building on work by Moltmann (2006, 2010) on generic one as well as Malamud’s work (2012) on the features of one and you, I identify two different kinds of zero person constructions in Finnish, suggest evidence that the two kinds of zeros differ in their featural properties, and propose a refinement to the topicality-based EPP in Finnish that can be used to explain unexpected word order patterns of the zero person construction. This work draws new connections between reference to speech-act participants (in particular speaker-related meaning) and word order constraints.