Universal 489: SOV ⇒ postposition

Universal 489: SOV ⇒ postposition

Original

With overwhelmingly greater than chance frequency, languages with normal SOV order are postpositional.

Standardized

With overwhelmingly greater than chance frequency, IF basic order is SOV, THEN adpositions will come after their NPs (i.e., be postpositions).

Keywords

order, SOV, postposition

Domain

syntax

Type

implication

Status

achronic

Quality

statistical

Basis

30 languages of Greenberg 1963 sample

Source

Greenberg 1963: 79, #4

Counterexamples

1. Iraqw (S. Cushitic, Afro-Asiatic), Khamiti (Daic, Austroasiatic), standard Persian (Iranian, Indo-European), Amharic (Semitic, Afro-Asiatic), data from Greenberg 1963.2. Old Indic, an OV language, has some adpositions that appear as prepositions and not, as should be expected, as postpositions (Andersen 1983)