The Atoms of Language by Mark C. Baker

Author:Mark C. Baker [MARK C. BAKER]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2011-12-31T05:00:00+00:00

Comparing the two diagrams shows that the subject comes first in the sentence regardless of whether it attaches to the verb phrase or to the auxiliary phrase. Each diagram also shows that the inflected verb comes last regardless of whether the verb moves to the tense or the tense moves to the verb. The basic geometry of the clause is such that these parameters do not create word order variations in head-final languages. For all we know, there may be subtly different types of subject-object-verb languages, just as French and English are subtly different types of subject-verb-object languages; but the differences are so slight that they have not generally been noticed. Perhaps clever arguments can be constructed using adverbs or other elements to show that some head-final languages have verb hosts and others have tense hosts. Or perhaps there are no elements that could ever be in the right place to bring these differences to light. This is currently a subject of controversy among linguists. However it turns out, it is to the credit of the parametric analysis that it generates only those gross word orders that are actually attested. Within my chemical analogy, I suggested that we think of Welsh as an alloy of English, the result of adding a bit of carbon to the iron. The lack of discernible variations on Japanese is then like adding the same percentage of carbon to a different substance and not getting a useful alloy out of it because of the inherent properties of the atoms involved.

FIGURE 5.5 An Object-Subject-Verb Language (Warao?)

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