One Response to “Order of Subject, Object and Verb”

1. Henry Davis Says:
   January 18th, 2012 at 8:27 am

   Though I’m not a big fan of major constituent order as a meaningful typological category, I may as well point out that the Salish languages represented here are more uniform than the maps make them look. To be precise, all of them are V-initial, with flexible post-predicative order (VOS/VSO). In most languages/dialects (all of Central Salish, Lower Lillooet, Thompson, Okanagan), the ‘unmarked’ order (in sentences presented out of the blue containing two animate arguments) is VSO; in some Interior languages (Upper Lillooet, Moses Columbia, Coeur D’Alene) it is VOS. Nearly all Salish languages also allow SVO under more or less restricted circumstances (more restricted in Central Salish, less so in the Interior). The only exception I know of is Bella Coola, which has rigid VSO order without an SVO alternant.
   However, Salish data points are spread across maps 81and 81b, falsely giving the impression, for example, that Lillooet differs fundamentally from Shuswap and Thompson, its closest relatives. As often, this is a problem with sources, which exaggerates cross-linguistic differences: van Eijk (1997) simply didn’t have enough data to characterize word order accurately, given the paucity of sentences with two overt arguments in the traditional narratives which formed the empirical basis of his grammar.

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