Universal 483: DO & IO are indicated by fixed word order ⇒ DO & IO are indicated by morphosyntactic marking
Original
80 % of the languages in Sedlak’s sample which indicate the direct or indirect object by word order also indicate them by morphological marker. Thus, even in those languages with a fixed word order, either direct object or the indirect object may be indicated by, say, the presence of a preposition, suffix, etc.
Standardized
IF direct and indirect objects are distinguished by word order, THEN they are also likely to be distinguished by morphosyntactic marking (affix, adposition).
