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 Number 65
 Original If a language has SOV word order, then if the adjective precedes the noun, the genitive precedes the noun.
If a language has dominant SOV order and the genitive follows the governing noun, then the adjective likewise follows the noun.
 Standardized IF basic order is OV, THEN IF the adjective precedes the noun, THEN the genitive precedes the noun.
 Formula SOV ⇒ (A N ⇒ G N)
 Keywords order, SOV, adjective, noun, attributive, genitive
 Domain syntax
 Type nested implication
 Status achronic
 Quality absolute
 Basis sample of 350 languages in Hawkins 1983
 Source Hawkins 1979: 626; Hawkins 1980: 201; Hawkins 1983: 64
 Counterexamples 
By Frans Plank 03.08.2006, 09:49 
Tigre (S. Semitic, Afro-Asiatic) has SOV/Prep/AN/NG; the inconsistency is due to Cushitic influence (Campbell et al. 1988).
 Comments 
By Frans Plank 03.08.2006, 09:49 
1. is virtually identical to .

2. Cf. Greenberg's own statement #5, with the implicans a conjunction.

3. Since the 1990s, Hawkins proposes alternative explanations of his universals (see e.g. Hawkins 1993: 234).

4. Dryer 1988: 191: "There is no evidence of any relationship between the order of Verb and Object and the order of Adjective and Noun". Dryer 1988: 200: "There is no clear evidence for the correlation between Genitive-Noun and Adjective-Noun order."
 

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