There is a tendency for conjunctions (including comlementizers) to occur in clause-final position in SOV languages and in clause-initial position in VSO languages.
Standardized
IF basic word order is SOV, THEN conjunctions occur in clause-final position. IF basic word order is VOS, THEN conjunctions occur in clause-initial position.
Keywords
order, SOV, VOS, conjunction, complementizer
Domain
syntax
Type
implication
Status
achronic
Quality
statistical
Basis
languages mentioned in Kuno, including Japanese, Korean, Turkish, German, French, Tagalog, Persian
This tendency is relevant to the positional tendencies of sentential NP’s because the positional tendencies are different for sentential NP’s WITH clause-initial complementizers than for sentential NP’s WITHOUT clause-initial complementizers – cf. ##1671, 1654. See detailed discussion of Kuno’s proposal in Dryer 1980.
This tendency is relevant to the positional tendencies of sentential NP’s because the positional tendencies are different for sentential NP’s WITH clause-initial complementizers than for sentential NP’s WITHOUT clause-initial complementizers – cf. ##1671, 1654. See detailed discussion of Kuno’s proposal in Dryer 1980.