Universal #1669

Legacy number: 1669

 Number  1664
 Original  In SOV languages, the usual place of sentence stress and hence that of rheme is the position immediately preceding the verb.
 Standardized  IF basic word order is SOV, THEN the usual place of rheme is the position immediately preceding the verb.
 Formula  SOV ⇒ rheme immediately precedes the verb
 Keywords  order, SOV, sentence stress, rheme
 Domain  syntax
 Type  implication
 Status  achronic
 Quality  statistical
 Basis  Uralic, Altaic, and some Indo-European languages
 Source  Dezsö 1977: 7

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Discussion
Notes
1. Cf. the statement for SVO languages: # 1670. 2. In Dezsö’s proposal, then, immediate proximity to the finite verb is crucial to the occurrence of rhematic constituenets, and their relative positions with respect to the verb (before or after the verb) is determined by the type of language, namely SOV or SVO. Kim (#1655) made a similar observation independently from Dezsö’s studies (Kim 1988: 147).
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
1. Cf. the statement for SVO languages: <a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=1670"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0">

2. In Dezsö's proposal, then, immediate proximity to the finite verb is crucial to the occurrence of rhematic constituenets, and their relative positions with respect to the verb (before or after the verb) is determined by the type of language, namely SOV or SVO. Kim (<a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=1655"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0">) made a similar observation independently from Dezsö's studies (Kim 1988: 147).