Universal #1672

Legacy number: 1672

 Number  1667
 Original  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
 Source  Kuno 1974: 127

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Discussion
Notes
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.
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
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. <a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=1671"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0">, <a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=1654"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0">. See detailed discussion of Kuno's proposal in Dryer 1980.