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Universal 1664: SOV ⇒ rheme immediately precedes the verb

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 1664: SOV ⇒ rheme immediately precedes the verb

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.
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
Counterexamples

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    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).

    1. May 2020

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