Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics.pdf

A-Z 1291refers to preferences pertaining to markedness, another criterion for basic order is itsstatistical dominance in texts (for problems with this criterion, see Siewierska 1988). Thefact that basic order is stylistically (e.g. pragmatically) neutral can be tested by trying touse the relevant expression as an answer to different questions. By this heuristic criterionPhilip I saw is established as a marked (or non-basic) order for English, because it cannotbe an answer to a question such as What’s new?, Who saw Philip?, or What did you do?Word order studies have produced different rules for basic or rigid order, amongwhich universals of basic order are of special interest. The characteristic of word orderwhich is most often discussed is the relative order of S(ubject), O(bject), and V(erb). Inmost of the world’s languages, S almost always precedes O, so that of the six possibleorderings of S, O, and V, the most common patterns are SOV (e.g. Turkish, Japanese),SVO (e.g. English, French), and VSO (e.g. Irish, Maori) (see Greenberg 1963;Mallinson and Blake 1981; Hawkins 1983; Tomlin 1986). The basic order of the majorconstitue of nts the clause correlates with the basic order of minor elements, such as thatof noun and attribute, adposition and its complement, complementizer and the rest of theembedded sentence. The universal principle underlying these correlations is that the headof a phrase tends to be placed at the same side of the phrase, preferably at its periphery(see Greenberg 1963; Vennemann 1974, 1976; Hawkins 1983, 1990). This principleexplains the fact that in head-final languages the basic order is SOV,complementpostposition, sentence-complementizer, attribute-noun (e.g. Japanese,Turkish). In head-initial languages the order of these elements is reversed (e.g. Irish,Maori). The fact that rather few languages adhere to this principle consistently for allphrases is explained by language change, language contact, or other intervening factors(see Vennemann 1974). As to pragmatic word order rules, two competing universalpreferences have been postulated: the theme of an utterance tends to precede the rheme( functional sentence perspective, theme vs rheme); the reverse principle thatmost important and thus rhematic information precedes thematic information was putforward by Givón (1983, 1988); (for a critique of both assumptions, see Primus 1993:Hawkins 1994). It is generally agreed, that a sentence topic tends to precede the comment( topic vs comment; Gundel 1988; Primus 1993). A ‘stylistic’ universal orderingpreference which is based on language performance (see Hawkins 1990, 1994) is theweight principle.ReferencesAbraham, W. and S.de Meij (eds) 1986. Topic, focus, and configurationality. Amsterdam.Andersen, P.K. 1983. Word order typology and comparative constructions. Amsterdam.Behaghel, O. 1932. Deutsche Syntax. Vol. 4. Heidelberg.Bossong, G. 1989. Morphemic marking of topic and focus. In M.Kefer and J.van der Auwera (eds),Universals of language. Brussels.Campbell, L., V.Bubenik, and L.Saxon. 1988. Word order universals. CJL 33.209–30.Davidson, A. 1984. Syntactic markedness and the definition of sentence topic. Language 60.707–846.Dik, S. 1989. The theory of Functional Grammar. Dordrecht.Downing, P. and M.Noonan. 1995. Word order in discourse. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA.Ebert, R.P. 1980. Variation study and word order change. CLS 16.52–61.Givón, T. 1983. Topic continuity in discourse: quantitative cross-language studies. Amsterdam.