Universal 1627:
- Original
- If a language has the order VOS, OVS, OSV and has a double object construction, the patient in that clause should precede the other object.
- Standardized
- IF basic order is VOS, OVS, or OSV and there is a double object construction, THEN the patient in that clause precedes the other object.
OR
IF in a basic word order object precedes subject and there is a double object construction, THEN the patient in that clause precedes the other object.
- Keywords
- order, VOS, OVS, OSV, double object, patient
- Domain
- syntax
- Type
- implication
- Status
- achronic
- Quality
- absolute
- Basis
- Object before Subject languages: VOS: Tzotzil (Mayan), Malagasy (Malayo-Polynesian), OVS: Hixkaryana (Carib), Pari (Nilotic, Nilo-Saharan), OSV: Hurrian (isolate), Kabardian (North Caucasian); Subject before Object languages: SOV: Tamil (Dravidian), Korean (Altaic), SVO: Kinyarwanda (Bantu, Niger-Congo), Dutch [in the main clause](Germanic, IE), VSO: Biblical Hebrew (Semitic, Afro-Asiatic)
- Source
- Polinsky 1995: 188
- Counterexamples
Polinsky mentions that “linearization rules become particularly stringent only under coding conflict, where other disambiguation means are absent”. “Patient-before-agent” languages without coding conflict may deviate from this rule. (1995: 190)