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Universal 1642: subordinating serial verb structures ⇒ SVO

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 1642: subordinating serial verb structures ⇒ SVO

Original
Nearly all of the examples of subordinating serial verb structures (V+V) are found in SVO languages.
Standardized
IF there are subordinating serial verb structures, THEN basic order will be SVO.
Keywords
order, SVO, serial verb
Domain
syntax
Type
implication
Status
achronic
Quality
statistical
Basis
languages surveyed by Shiller 1990
Source
Shiller 1990: 396
Counterexamples
Some SOV languages: Ijo (Ijoid, Niger-Congo), Barai (Trans-New Guinea), Lahu, and Yi (both Burmese-Lolo, Tibeto-Burman). However, none of these languages conform completely to the definition of canonical serial verb construction employed by Shiller [for definition see Comments] (Shiller 1990).

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    A CANONICAL SUBORDINATING SERIAL VERB CONSTRUCTION is defined as a subordinating serial verb construction which has verb phrases appearing in the syntax in an order which conforms to underlying word order in terms of the both the semantic and the syntactic head. In other words, in VO languages one expects that the phrase containing the semantic head will precede the subordinate material, and that in an OV language it will follow subordinate material.

    1. May 2020

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