Universal 1372: SOV v. VOS ⇒ ¬ verb HAVE;
verb HAVE ⇒ SVO
- Original
- A lexically distinct form of verb HAVE is generally missing in verb peripheral languages (i.e. SOV, VOS). That is, a verb HAVE is generally confined to SVO languages.
- Standardized
- IF basic word order is verb-peripheral (i.e. SOV, VOS), THEN there tends to be no transitive verb of possession HAVE.
IF there is a transitive verb HAVE, THEN basic word order is SVO.
- Keywords
- order, verb, possession
- Domain
- syntax, lexicon
- Type
- implication
- Status
- achronic
- Quality
- statistical
- Basis
- languages mentioned in Mahajan 1997
- Source
- Mahajan 1997 1997: 38
- Counterexamples
- German, Dutch (Germanic, Indo-European), Basque (isolate): SOV & verb HAVE (see discussion in Mahajan 1997);Mizo, Hmar, Aimol (all Tibeto-Burman): SOV & verb HAVE (Subbarao 1998: 15-16).
1. The explanation has to do with ergativity, an alignment pattern allegedly confined to verb-peripheral languages (see #1271). Ergative languages generally lack verb HAVE (see Trask 1979: 388). To explain this, Mahajan (1997: 41) assumes that an empty P, which originates as a sister of the subject, incorporates into the auxiliary BE to yield HAVE in non-ergative languages. In ergative languages the P-incorporation is not possible, so the absence of HAVE in those languages.2. Mahajan considers only SOV and VSO types as verb-peripheral languages. It is not clear whether this generalization is valid also for the other verb-peripheral languages: OSV and VOS.3. A transitive verb of possession has elsewhere been claimed to be confined to languages spoken in complex societies based on the individual (rather than communal, kinship-group) acquisition and control of property (see Webb 1977). This cultural parameter in turn has been claimed to correlate positively with ergativity (see Plank (ed.) 1979).