Universal 1315: scrambling ⇒ head-final order
- Original
- Scrambling is limited to head-final contexts.
- Standardized
- IF there is scrambling, THEN the order is head-final.
- Keywords
- scrambling, order, head-final
- Domain
- syntax
- Type
- implication
- Status
- achronic
- Quality
- absolute
- Basis
- sample of 23 languages in Corver & Riemsdijk 1997
- Source
- Corver & Riemsdijk 1997: 66, Baker 1996: 505 (for verb-final languages)
- Counterexamples
1. Corver & Riemsdijk consider only neutral scrambling which does not require any special intonational prominence and discards contrastive scrambling from discussion.2. Head-final contexts include not only head-final languages but also head-final domain in a mixed-headed language. In Dutch, for example, the verbal domain in head-final, but the nominal domain is head-initial. Adjectives and prepositions are sometimes initial and sometimes final. Dutch has scrambling in the verbal domain and head final APs and PPs but not in the nominal domain.3. Some Slavic/Balkan languages (Albanian, Czech, Macedonian, Polish, Russian) are head-initial but show scrambling. Corver & Riemsdijk report that most of their informants agree that this scrambling is permitted under a focus reading of the scrambled constituent (so, contrast scrambling).