Skip to content

Universal 277: VOS ⇒ ¬ verbal inflection

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 277: VOS ⇒ ¬ verbal inflection

Original
If a language has VOS order, then it has no verbal inflection.
Standardized
IF basic order is VOS, THEN there is no verbal inflection.
Keywords
order, VOS, inflection, verb
Domain
inflection, syntax
Type
implication
Status
achronic
Quality
absolute
Basis
50 languages of Bybee 1985b sample, see Bybee 1985b: 215-216
Source
Bybee 1985b: 46-47
Counterexamples
Fijian, Gilbertese (both Malayo-Polynesian), Tzeltal (Mayan), Otomi (Oto-Manguean), Ineseño Chumach (Hokan), Baure (Arawakan), Tzotzil, Kekchi (both Mayan), Tsou (Formosan, Austronesian) are VOS and have a prefixal subject agreement and some form of suffixal object agreement (Keenan 1978: 288).

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    1. Cf. a less restrictive claim by Keenan (#1518): If a language is subject-final then either transitive verbs of unmarked sentences agree with no full noun phrase in the sentence or they agree with two noun phrases. 2. By SUBJECT-FINAL languages Keenan means any language in which full noun phrase subjects must follow noun phrase direct obejcts in the pragmatically least marked sentence types (which contain both subjects and direct objects) of the language.3. According to his survey (#1516): Subject-final languages are always verb-initial. Which means that Keenan’s claims about subject-final languages can be applied to VOS languages as well.

    1. May 2020

Comments are closed.