Word Order in English and Spanish from a Typological Perspective

1
Word Order in English and Spanish from a
Typological Perspective

• Anna Siewierska Dik Bakker
• (Lancaster University)

2
Word Order Typology

• Word order lies at the heart of typological
  investigations
• Greenberg (1963) Some universals of grammar with
  particular reference to the order of meaningful
  elements
• The first universals related to basic word order
  of the subject, object and verb in declarative
  clauses and
• the existence of correlating word order patterns
  at the phrase level
• the existence of correlating patterns in
  non-declaratives
• the presence of inflectional categories

3
Word order Spanish English

• Both are SVO languages
• Interesting differences under closer inspection
• Frequency of SVO order
• Frequency of SV
• Use of alternative orders

4
SVO order in English

• Not necessarily the most frequent order
• Intransitive clauses may be more frequent than
  transitive
• The most frequent order in transitive clauses
• OSV the only alternative
• Frequency of OSV 1
• SVO 99 of transitive clauses

5
SVO order in Spanish

• Not necessarily the most frequent order in
  transitive clauses
• Subjects need not be overt
• Objects if pronominal are typically clitics,
  proclitics or enclitics
• Three alternatives to SVO
• OVS, VOS, VSO

6
OVS

• O V S
• Buen descanso ganó su pobre marido
• good rest earned her poor husband

7
VOS

• V O S
• Llena los vasos Don Latino
• fills the glasses Don Latino

8
VSO

• V S O
• Vestía la novia un traje blanco,
• was wearing the bride a suit white
• diseñado, por
• designed by

9
Basic nature of SVO

• The most frequent order in transitive clauses in
  which the subject and object are overt and
  lexical
• Actual frequency of SVO
• Text type
• Variety of Spanish

10
Statistical data

• Clements (2006119)
• SVO 90-95 in narratives
• García-Miguel (1995) two NPs
• VO 97 , SV 78
• Silva-Corvalán (1983) Ocampo (1995428)
  Rioplatenese Spanish conversation
• VO with lexical O 93 of transitive clauses
• Pinedo (1997) contemporary written Madrid Spanish
• OV with lexical O 17 of transitive VS clauses
• VOS (21) and VSO (47) are more common than OVS

11
Some comparative data

• SVO in Transitive with 2 NPS All Clauses
• Russian 60
• Czech 63
• Hungarian 71 8
• Polish 73 20
• Finnish 78 6
• Greek 81
• Spanish 85
• English 99

12
Intransitive order

• SVO ? SV
• English complies with some exceptions
• Spanish does not comply fully
• SV vs. VS
• Castilian conyemporary 47 vs. 54
• Cervantese 47 vs. 53
• Rioplatanese Spanish 38 vs. 62

13
Transitive intransitive order

• Transitive Intransitive
• Hung SV 96 SV 89
• VS 3 VS 11
• Polish SV 76 SV 68
• VS 24 VS 32
• Greek SV 83 SV 50
• VS 17 VS 50
• Spanish SV 78 SV 47
• VS 22 VS 53

14
VO vs. OV

• English
• VO vs. OV 99 vs. 1
• Spanish
• VO vs. OV 93-97 vs. 7-3
• Polish
• VO vs. OV 82 vs. 18

15
VO vs. OV

• Russian
• Written
• SV 70 vs. VS 30
• OV 10 vs. VO 90
• Spoken
• SV 90 vs. VS 10
• OV 50 vs. VO 50

16
An alternative classification

• English Strongly SV VO
• Spanish Strongly VO (be it less strongly than
  English) but SV/VS
• Polish flexible SV VO
• Russian SV VO/OV

17
Why?

• What are the differences in word order variation
  due to?
• Between Spanish and English
• In SVO languages
• In languages in general

18
WO variation morphological marking

• Word order variation in transitive clauses
• Morphological marking
• Case marking
• Agreement marking

19
WO variation case

• Case marking allows the subject and object to be
  distinguished from each other without relying on
  word order to do so
• Rigid word order of English is typically
  attributed to the disappearance of case
• Old English had case marking and exhibited
  greater word order flexibility SVO, SOV, OSV,
  OVS, VSO (rare)

20
Old English SOV

• S O V
• ic Þæs næfre ne sceamige
• Inom thisgen never not shame1sg
• I am never ashamed of that.

21
Old English OVS

• O V S
• Tyn beboda awrat se ælmihtiga
• Ten commandments wote the almighty
• on dæm twam tabelum
• on the two tablets
• The almighty wrote ten commandments on the two
  tablets. (p. 42)

22
Old English VSO

• V S O
• Secgad eac ure bec Þæt we sceolon
• Say-pl also our books that we shall
• das feowertyne niht mid micelre
• these fourteen nights with great
• geornfulnysse healdan
• earnestness hold
• Our books also say that we should hold these
  fourteen days with great earnestness.

23
Current English Spanish

• Differ with regard to case
• English no case marking with non-pronominal NPs
• Spanish has case marking with non-pronominal
  definite, animate objects by means of a

24
Word order variation Siewierska (1997)

• Measuring w/o variation number of permutations
  of S,O V
• rigid - no variants
• restricted - one variant English
• variable - two variants Icelandic
• flexible - three variants Spanish
• highly flexible - four Polish

25
WO case

• Languages which lack case marking favour rigid
  (36) and restricted order (33) 69

26
Case relative to wo variation
27
WO case

• The level of case marking increases from 24 in
  rigid languages to 79 in highly flexible ones

28
Wo variation relative to case
29
Flexibility, marking wo type

• Word order variation is more sensitive to case
  marking in SVO than in SOV
• 57 of the rigid SOV, 88 of rigid SVO 100 of
  rigid VSO/VOS lack case marking
• 5 of the highly flexible SOV, 28 of the SVO
  8 of the VSO/VOS have case marking
• SVO languages without case tend not to have SOV

30
WO variation agreement

• Agreement marking helps to distinguish the
  subject from the object if the two differ in
  person, number or gender.
• If a language has subject agreement only,
  whichever NP displays agreement is the subject
• saw-3sg the children Mary
• saw-3sg Mary I
• the children saw-3sg Mary

31
WO variation agreement

• Agreement is cross-linguistically much more
  common than case marking
• 75 - 80 of languages have agreement
• 45- 50 of languages have case marking
• Spanish English differ in regard to agreement
  Spanish has agreement, English only vestiges

32
WO variation agreement
33
Agreement vs. wo variation
34
WO variation agreement marking

• Absence of agreement is a good predictor of lack
  of word order variation, but presence of
  agreement is not a good predictor of flexible
  order (Siewierska 1997.507)
• The greatest sensitivity to the presence of
  agreement marking is exhibited by SVO languages
• Rigid SVO are much less likely to have agreement
  than rigid SOV or V1
• Flexible SVO are more likely to have agreement
  than flexible SOV or V1

35
SVO, Agr variation

• No SVO language in the sample without agreement
  has either OVS or VOS
• Only two of the SVO without agreement have VSO,
  Gude and Coptic, Gude (aspect), Coptic a
  descendent of VSO
• The most likely variant in SVO without agreement
  is OSV
• Postverbal placement of transitive S in SVO
  seems to depend on agreement

36
Spanish English

• Absence of word order variants other than OSV in
  English, no case marking or agreement marking
• Spanish
• Presence of OVS, VOS VSO associated with
  agreement marking
• Absence of SOV restricted case marking
• ?no OSV

37
Exercise

• OSV in English
• What are the semantic characteristics of the
  subject and object, definiteness, animacy,
  person?

38
Back to basic order

• Correlations between the basic order in the
  clause and the phrase
• The clause VO vs. OV
• The phrase
• Type of adpositions
• The placement of the inflected auxiliary relative
  to the verb
• Order within the NP

39
Consistent ordering

• A Consistent language is one in which all head
  modifier pairs comply with either
• head gt modifier
• modifier gt head
• English Spanish SVO -gt VO gt HM
• Expectation
• Head Modifier
• verb object
• PPs adposition NP
• VC auxiliary verb
• Confirmed

40
In the NP

• Initial expectation also HM
• Head Modifier
• noun article
• noun demonstrative
• noun adjective
• noun numeral
• noun quantifier
• noun pronominal possessor
• noun genitive
• noun relative clause

41
Revising the expectations

• Dryer (1992) contrary to what Greenberg
  suggested not all head/modifier pairs correlate
  with VO vs. OV
• Only those do where H is a non-phrasal (lexical
  category) and M is a phrasal category (branching
  category)
• Branching categories V NP, V PP, P NP N
  Gen N AdjP N Rel Cl
• Non-branching N Art, N Dem, Noun Num, N Q

42
The Branching Direction Theory

• Languages tend to be either right-branching (VO)
  in which phrasal categories follow non-phrasal
  categories or left-branching (OV) in which
  phrasal categories precede non-phrasal categories

43
head modifier in the NP

• Modifier Head E S
• article noun MH MH
• demonstr noun MH MH/M
• adjective noun MH M/HM
• numeral noun MH MH/M
• quantifier noun MH MH/M
• genitive Pro noun MH MH/M
• genitive NP noun M/HM HM
• rel clause noun HM HM

44
Consistency within the NP

• English at the NP level is predominantly MH not
  HM
• Spanish is more HM

45
In the European context

• Distribution of languages in Europe in terms of
  consistent HM vs. MH
• NP
• Head gt Modifier
  Celtic lt Albanian, Romance lt Greek,
  Slavic lt Germanic lt Baltic, Finnic
• Modifier gt Head

46
Away from Eurasian OV

• The Celtic are VSO and the Finnic have fairly
  recently undergone a change from SOV to SVO order
  

47
VSO, SVO SOV
48
Away from Eurasian OV

• The increase in HM order as we proceed from east
  to west may be attributed to the geographical and
  chronological distance from the MH type
  predominant in Eurasia

49
The VO lgs. of Europe

• Increase in HM features from east to west
• Num lt Demlt Adj lt Gen lt Rel
• NumN all VO lgs (not yet)
• NDem Celtic
• NAdj Celtic, Albanian, Romance (and also
  Maltese and Assyrian)
• NG Celtic, Romance, Albanian, Maltese,
  Assyrian, Greek, Germanic and Slavic
• NRel all VO lgs

50
Variation within the NP

• Which modifiers exhibit alternative placement
  possibilities relative to the head
• In the languages of Europe (Bakker Siewierska
  1997)

51
Decreasing likelihood of variation

• A hierarchy of decreasing likelihood of
  exhibiting an alternative order to that of the
  basic order
• adjective gt genitive gt relative clause gt numeral
  gt demonstrative
• AdjN/NAdj in just over half of the lgs. of
  Europe
• GN/NG in a little over a third
• RelN/NRel in a little over a quarter
• NumN/NNUm in about a fifth
• DemN/NDem in only 13

52
Away from Eurasian OV Adj

• The further removed a language is from this
  Eurasian OV type the less relics of this type and
  more deviation in the direction of VO order it
  should display.
• Celtic strongly NAdj (AdjN only with
  semi-compounds)
• Germanic, Baltic and Finnic strongly AdjN
• middle more readily NAdj --gt AdjN (Albanian,
  Maltese, Romance) or AdjN --gt NAdj (Greek and
  Slavic) order.
• The possibilities of the use of AdjN order
  decrease with the distance from the Eurasian OV
  type

53
Away from Eurasian OV Gen

• The alternative orders of the genitive pattern in
  a similar way.
• Celtic, Albanian and Romance only NG
• Greek and Slavic allow GN under various
  circumstances
• Germanic and Baltic GN languages have NG
• Finnic the majority strictly GN.

54
Away from Eurasian OV Rel

• Only the Finnic languages have a regular RelN
  alternative to the basic NRel, a clear relic of
  their relatively recent OV past.

55
Variation in English Spanish NPs

• English
• GN vs. NG
• Spanish
• NAdj vs. AdjN

56
GN vs. NG in English

• Old English GN (s-genitive) with rare instances
  of NG (of-phrase)
• By Middle English NG (of phrase) well established
• Recently a resurgence of GN (s-genitive)

57
GN vs. NG

• The choice between the s-genitive and the
  of-phrase has been seen to be determined by
  factors such as
• animacy of possessor, thematic status,
  information status, final sibilant on the
  possessor, end weight, persistence (i.e.
  repetition) and the nouniness of the
  text/passage
• register

58
Register

• NG is more common than GN in all registers
• News has by far the highest frequency of GN
• Academic prose has by far the highest frequency
  of NG

59
GN vs. NG

• Animacy of possessor
• Johns leg
• the leg of the chair
• ?the chairs leg
• Definiteness of possessed
• a book of Johns
• the book of Johns
• Length of possessor
• the trustees appointment
• the recent appointment of a part-time woman and
  two men

60
Increase of GN with inanimates

• Jespersen(1909-49 VII, 327f.)
• the seas rage, the rapidity of the hearts
  action, or the rooms atmosphere.
• Greater increase in American (41) than in
  British English (25)
• British English LOB vs. F-LOB
• American English Brown vs. Frown
• Greatest increases in Press and Learned
  subcorpora, showing remarkable rises of 57 and
  88 in AmE and 35 and 34 in BrE respectively

61
S-genitive vs. of-genitive length

• the lecturer's name
• the lecturer who stammer's name
• the name of the lecturer who stammers
• Biber et al (1999) proportional use of s-gentive
  and of-phrase of different lengths, for selected
  head nouns appointment, arrival, muder,
  resignation, withdrawal

62
Biber et al. (1999304)
63
NA vs. AN in Spanish

• Two types of adjectives relational (geographic
  entity, ethnic group, professional or scientific
  discipline, symbolic or philosophical movement)
  vs. qualifying (shape, space physical property)
• invasión americana, estractura molecular
• grandes edificios, ciertas fórmulas
• Relational confined to NA
• Qualifying more flexibility NA AN

64
NA vs. AN

• AN order is much more common in written discourse
  (24) than in spoken (5)
• AN order has become less common over time
• File- Muriel (2006) fiction
• 1648 62.9 AN
• 1876 58 AN
• 1886 55 AN
• 1974 27 AN
• 1981 24 AN
• 1999 24 AN

65
NA vs. AN

• Variation in placemen in order
• Contrast, emphasis
• vivos colores ? colores vivos
• Change in meaning
• el antiguo presidente vs. el president antiguo
• the former the very old
• Heaviness

66
Heaviness

• Syllabic heaviness if the adjective has fewer
  syllables than the noun, the adjective is
  preposed, if more, it is postposed
• File- Muriel (2006211) preposed adjectives tend
  to be equal or lighter than the N 83.8 overall
  and in written discourse and 100 in spoken
  discourse
• Relational adjectives tend to be heavier (in
  terms of number of syllables) than other types of
  adjectives

67
Relative heaviness

• Mean nr syllables preposed
• Relational 3.93 0
• Evaluation 3.55 46.8
• Personality 3.5 18.8
• Modality 3.25 30.6
• Temporal 3.11 35.7
• Physical 2.8 40.0
• Shape space 2.56 44.2
• for evaluational 3.18 for preposed, 3.88 for
  postposed

68
Sequences of adjectives

• Postposed
• N relational gt qualifying
• Una comedia musical americana divertida
• a comedy musical American amusing
• an amusing American musical comedy
• Preposed qualifying Postposed
• Una divertida comedia musical americana
• a amusing comedy musical American
• an amusing American musical comedy

69
Sequences of modifiers

• Simple NPs
• Demonstrative, Numeral, Adjective Noun
• Most common in Europe and the world
• Dem Num A N (English)
• Exclusive to Europe as a basic order
• Dem Num N A (Spanish)
• Complex NPs
• Dem Num A N Gen/Rel English
• Dem Num N A Gen/ Rel Spanish

70
Factors underlying word order

• Information structure
• Linearizing constituents in a way which is most
  likely for the hearer to understand the
  communicative intention of the speaker
• Processing ease
• Linearizing constituents in a way which will
  enable the hearer to process the utterance in the
  shortest possible time

71
Information Structure

• Topic vs. Comment
• A binary approach topic what the utterance is
  primarily about vs. comment what is said about
  the topic
• Who painted this picture?
• It was painted by Jasper.
• Non-binary what the utterance is primarily about
  (topic a relation between a discourse entity and
  a predication) vs. focus the most important or
  salient piece of information in the utterance as
  assessed by the speaker

72
Topic vs. Focus

• Who painted this one?
• It was painted by Jasper.
• Jasper painted it.
• It was Jasper who painted it.
• Where are they from?
• France.
• c. What was it like?
• Dreadful.

73
Given vs. new information

• Given assumed to be identifiable by the hearer
• New assumed not to be identifiable by the hearer
• Who painted this one?
• Jasper painted it.
• It was Jasper who painted it.

74
Levels of activation

• Active currently in centre of consciousness
  just mentioned, well established
• 1.Okay, there's a farmer. 2.He looks like a
  Chicano American. 3.He is picking pears. (...) 4.
  A little boy comes by on his bicycle. 5.He sees
  that there are baskets of pears there.
  6.Meanwhile, there are three little boys, up on
  the road a little bit, 7.and they see this little
  accident
• Semi-active in a person's peripheral
  consciousness
• 8.And then he (i.e. the boy on the bicycle) goes
  off, 9. and that's the end of that story. 10.But
  then it goes back to the farmer. 11.Finally he
  comes down from his tree. 12.He looks at the
  baskets.

75
Levels of activiation

• Inferrable referents inferentially related to
  some evoked entity, or in a salient set relation
  to such an entity.
• It's a nice house, but the kitchen is too small.
• The team played quite well I suppose, but one or
  two of them are still a bit unfit.
• Inactive currently in a person's long term
  memory

76
Word Order Information Structure

• Topic gt comment unmarked
• Comment gt Topic marked
• Topic gt Focus unmarked
• Focus gt Topic marked
• Given gt New unmarked
• New gt Given marked

77
Task Urgency Givon (1988)

• Attend first to the most urgent task, where a
  communicative task is identified as more urgent
  if the information to be communicated is either
  less predictable or more important.
• less predictable gt more predictable
• more important gt less important
• comment comment gt topic topic gt comment
  topic

78
Who painted the picture?

• Jasper.
• Jasper painted it.
• It was painted by Jasper.
• The picture, Jasper painted it.

79
WO type IS

• Task Urgency is intended to hold for all
  languages subject to grammatical factors
• Significantly it is intended to hold for both
• Subject before object languages
• Object before subject languages
• More important before less important

80
WO IS in English Spanish

• WO more grammaticalized in English than in
  Spanish
• To what extent does wo reflect TU?
• Preposing of topical given information
• Postposing of new/focal information

81
Spanish main clause order

• OVS
• VOS
• VSO
• SV vs. VS

82
OVS without clitic doubling

• OVS
• !Buen descanso ganó su pobre marido!
• good rest earned her poor
  husband.
• OV-s
• Alhajas, no tengo
• Jewels not have1sg
• Jewellery I dont have.

83
OVS with clitic doubling

• O cl V S
• El dinero lo puso Arturo, naturalmente
• the money it put Arturo of
  course
• The money, Arturo put it in , of course.
• O cl V-s
• A Juan lo he visto en el supermercado
• Obj Juan him have1sg seen in the
  supermarket
• Juan I saw in the supermarket.

84
OVS

• Without clitic doubling
• Restricted to non-specific
• Typically bare plurals
• Contrary to expectation O new initial peak
  pitch and an accent with a steep fall
• Focus- fronting O is new the distance between
  highest and lowest pitch is smaller than in
  contrary to expectation
• Contrastive
• With clitic doubling
• Definite
• Old information, topical

85
VOS

• Han recorrido el camino desde
• have travelled the road from
• reyes a mendigos, desde santos a kings to
  beggars from saints to
• seres
• normal people

86
VOS

• Conduce la discusión Don conducts
  the discussion don
• Lauro Rovirosa, que tiene
• L R who has

87
VOS

• Information structure
• O typically given
• S focal, new, often long

88
VSO

• Conflicting claims
• Whitley (1986) S preferably indefinite
• Se ha comido un niño la manzana
• Se ha comido el niño la manzana
• Pinedo (1997)
• Short subject, human, animate, second argument
  clausal object or NP not amenable to
  passivization, e.g. second argument of verb
  have
• Frequent in indirect reported speech

89
VSO

• S frequently main protagonist of a particular
  stretch of discourse, often of a whole text
• Pudo recordar la cantante su primera
• could remember the singer her first
• boda
• wedding

90
VSO

• Tenía el racimo cinco grandes uvas
• had the bunch five big grapes
• The bunch had five big grapes.
• Queriendo el hombre desplazarse
• wanted the man travel
• acaso para observar, al menos en un
• perhaps to observe
• principio, de dónde venia el viento y de dónde
  la lluvia.

91
VSO

• Information structure
• S given, activated, topical
• O new, focal
• V maybe new

92
OSV in English

• Similar to Spanish OVS without clitic doubling
• O Contrasitve
• O Focal
• S given information, de-accented
• S typically a personal pronoun

93
SV vs. VS in Spanish English

• Postposing of new S
• Bare no preverbal material
• Inversion with preverbal material
• Existentials

94
Bare SV vs. VS

• Spanish both SV VS
• Los niños sonrieron
• The children smiled.
• Canta mi padre
• My father sings.
• English SV only (apart from stage presentations)
• A woman enters
• Enters an old woman

95
Preverbal S in Spanish

• No bare plurals
• Llegaron muebles
• arrived furniture
• The furniture arrived.
• Muebles llegaron

96
Inversion XVS

• Definiteness
• VS in English are indefinite
• Spanish allows both definite indefinite
• Nature of verb
• VS in English low content, unaccuative verbs
• Spanish allows inversion with all sorts of verbs
• Information structure
• VS typically is presentative

97
Indefinite S

• En el vacío indoloro patino de pronto
• in the void painless slid suddenly
• una voz gangosa, jadeante
• a voice twanging, painting
• Into the painless void suddenly slid a panting,
  twanging voice

98
No definiteness constraint

• XVS def
• A las cuatro viene la funeraria
• at four comes the undertaker
• The undertaker is due at four.
• En el patio ladra el perro
• in the yard barks the dog
• The dog is barking in the yard.

99
verbs

• Cantaba un pajaro en el solitario corral
• singing a bird in the deserted
  threshold
• A bird was singing in the deserted threshold.
• In the deserted threshold was a bird singing.
• In the deserted threshold there was a bird
  singing.

100
English inversion

• Type of preposed complement
• Restrictions on use

101
Type of preposed complements

• PP
• George can you do me a favour. Up in my room, on
  the nightstand is a pinkish reddish envelope that
  has to go out immediately.
• AdjP
• Immediately recognisable here is the basic,
  profoundly false tenet of Movie Philosophy 101

102
Type of preposed complement

• NP
• Shes a nice woman, isnt she. Also a nice woman
  is our next guest.
• Subjectless non-finite clauses
• Arrested were Nathan Johnson, 23 of New York and
  his brother, Victor Johnson, 32.

103
Condition 1

• The preposed phrase must not represent
  information that has a lower level of activation
  in the discourse that that represented by the
  postposed NP.
• They have a whole bunch of pots in the kitchen,
  and in a great big tank are sitting all of the
  pots.
• They have a whole bunch of pots in the kitchen,
  and in the tank are sitting all of the pots.

104
Condition 2

• Unless the preposed dependent is semantically
  locative, the inversion requires an appropriate
  open proposition that is discourse old.
• The Air Water show did not go as planned
  yesterday. Wounded were Paul Randolph and Steve
  Seymour.
• Two young men were hurt yesterday during a
  bungled convenience store robbery., according to
  police. Two suspects were arrested at the scene
  and are now in custody. Wounded were Paul
  Randolph and Steve Seymour.

105
Condition 3

• The verb must not represent information that is
  new to the discourse.
• The vast majority of inversion have ascriptive
  be
• Other verbs
• He opened the door and took a folded canvas
  bucket from behind the seat. Coiled on the floor
  lay a fifty-foot length of braided nylon.
• Beneath the chin lap of the helmet sprouted black
  whiskers.
• On the managers desk sat a large manila
  envelope.

106
Existentials

• English there
• Spanish haber estar

107
Haber estar

• Haber indefinite S
• Hay un caballo en el jardin
• There is a horse in the garden.
• Estar definite S
• En el jardin esta el caballo.
• in the garden is the horse.
• The horse is in the garden.

108
Existentials

• Bare existentials
• There was a power failure.
• There are many splendid things.
• Extended existentials
• Theres a man knocking at the door.
• Theres plenty of room on the top shelf
• Bare existentials do not and extended ones may
  have non-there counterparts
• A power failure was
• A man was knocking at the door

109
Exercise existentials

• Not all extended existentials have a non-there
  counterpart. Determine which do and which do not.

110
Processing Ease

• The Early Immediate Constituent (EIC) recognition
  principle (Hawkins 1994)
• A preference for linearization patterns which
  allow the quickest recognition of immediate
  constituents of syntactic groupings
• The EIC predicts that information about immediate
  constituency should be placed in the earlier
  rather than the latter part of a string

111
EIC

• a. I vp introduced np some friends that John
  brought to the party ppto Mary
• I vpintroduced ppto Mary npsome friends that
  John brought to the party
• VP V NP PP vs. V PP NP

112
A preference for b) over a)

• in (a) since the NP is heavy the distance
  separating the first IC, the V from the word that
  constructs the last IC, the PP (the preposition
  to) is very long
• in (1b) the distance between V and the word
  constructing the last IC of the VP, the NP (the
  word some) is much shorter
• thus all the ICs of the VP are more rapidly
  recognized in (b) than in (a)
• consequently there should be a preference for (b)
  over (a)

113
Word order length complexity

• short gt long
• less complex gt more complex
• LIPOC (Dik 1978)
• Other things being equal, constituents prefer to
  be placed in an order of increasing complexity,
  where the complexity of constituents is defined
  as follows
• (i) clitic lt pronoun lt noun phrase lt adpositional
  phrase lt subordinate clause
• (ii) for any category X X lt X co X
• (iii) for any categories X and YX lt X sub Y

114
Wackernagels Law

• the tendency for clitics to occur in second
  position in the utterance,
• Slovene
• a. Pojavil se je problem.
• emerged refl beprs3sg problem
• There emerged a problem.'
• b. O?e mu jo je
  dal.
• father hedat itacc beprs3sg given
• Father gave/ has given it to him.'

115
Earlier placement of pronominal objects

• Spanish clitic objects
• Vi a Juan
• saw1sg acc Juan
• I saw Juan.
• Lo vi.

116
Uzbeck

• Men un-ga nlma-ni berman.
• I him-dat apple-acc givefut
• I'll give him the apple.'
• Men u- ni sen-ga raman.
• I it-acc you-dat sendfut
• I'll send it to you.'

117
Heavy NP-shift

• NP PP ? PP NP
• The girl wore on her shoulders two large white
  wings decorated with almond shaped figures.
• Agile explained to us the various symbols.
• She revealed to him the true measurements of the
  temple of Solomon.
• I drew on the parquet the circle of defence

118
Final placement of sentential NPs

• That he is jealous is obvious.
• It is obvious that he is jealous.

119
Extraposition from NP

• I met a man last night who reminded me of you.
• Another book has just appeared about word order.

120
Adjectives with PP/S complements

• paper yellow with age
• a man interested in music
• a people so independent that they reject help

121
Other

• GN vs. NG in English
• AN vs. NA in Spanish
• Binominal expressions
• prim and proper bag and baggage death and
  destruction
• part and parcel out and about

122
Back to the EIC

• Predictions regarding length and complexity are
  sensitive to the basic word order of a language,
  whether it is basically OV or VO
• For relatively heavy categories such as
  sentential and NP complements the EIC predicts
• short gt long in VO languages but
• long gt short in OV
• For single word categories short gt long in all
  languages

123
long gt short

• Japanese
• a. s1NPMary ga VPSS2kinoo John ga
  kekkonsi-ta
• Mary yesterday John married
• to it-ta
• that said
• Mary said that John got married yesterday
• b. s2SS1Kinoo John ga kekkonsi-ta to NPMary
  gaVP
• it-ta

124
long gt short

• Hare
• Mary Inuvik wheda John yodihsho
• Mary Inuvik bein John knows
• John knows that Mary is in Inuvik.

125
EIC algorithm

• Processing ease is determined by counting the
  number of words required to recognize each
  immediate constituent, expressing this in the
  form of an IC-to-word ratio, converting this
  ratio to a percentage and finally averaging out
  all the percentages.
• As soon as all the ICs are encountered, the word
  count stops irrespective of how many words the
  last IC actually has.
• The higher the EIC-ratio, the easier the given
  word order pattern is assumed to be for
  processing.
• The EIC ratios depend on length (measured in
  number of words) and number of constituents
  within a particular constituent recognition domain

126
EIC word order predictions

• Cross-linguistic preferences which word order
  patterns are preferred by grammars which are the
  most frequent basic word order patterns
  (grammaticalization)
• Preference for SOV vs. OSV
• Preference for SVO vs. OVS
• Language internal which word order patterns are
  most frequent in texts and preferred by speakers
  in psycholinguistic experimentation (performance)

127
Cross-linguistic

• OV vs. VO adpositions
• VO languages tend to have prepositions
• OV languages tend to have postpositions
• however there are VO languages with postpositions
  
• and also much more rarely OV languages with
  prepositions

128
VO post

• Arawak
• Li fary-fa aba kabadaro
• he kill-fut one jaguar
• He killed a jaguar.
• Da-dyka no hyala diako
• 1sg-see it bench on
• I saw it on a bench.

129
OV Prep

• Tigre
• Ana ?et l?hay may ??t-ta mahaze gale
• 1sg in that water in-the river
  something
• ??r?? halle-ko
• see be-1sg
• I see something in the water in the river.

130
WALS
131
EIC ratios

• a. went to that film EIC ratio 77
• b. went that film to EIC ratio 23
• c. that film to went EIC ratio 93
• d. to that film went EIC ratio 7

132
Language internal

• Particle movement in English
• a. V NP particle basic
• b.V particle NP transformed
• NP1 word
• a. Joe looked Mary up. Basic 51
• b. Joe looked up Mary. Transformed 3
• Ratio of transformed 6

133
Particle movement

• NP2 words
• a. Joe looked the number up. Basic 21
• b. Joe looked up the number.
• Transformed 45
• Ratio of transformed 68
• NP3 words
• a. Joe looked the fax number up. Basic 3
• b. Joe looked up the fax number.
• Transformed 13
• Ratio of transformed 81

134
Particle movement

• NP4 words
• a. Joe looked the new fax number up. Basic 1
• b. Joe looked up the new fax number.
• Transformed 13
• Ratio of transformed 93
• NP5
• a. Joe looked his sisters new fax number up.
• Basic 0
• b. Joe looked up his sisters new fax number.
  Transformed 29
• Ratio of transformed 100

135
Back to transitive order

• Transitive order EIC
• Data for Polish transitive order
• All six permutations of S, O, V
• No data for Spanish transitive order
• SVO, VSO, VOS OVS
• To what extent are the two languages similar??

136
Frequency of Tr orders in Polish

• N 760 Expository prose fiction
• SOV 52 6.8
• SVO 331 43.5
• VSO 72 9.4
• VOS 109 14.3
• OVS 158 20.7
• OSV 38 5

137
Polish vs. Spanish

• Polish Spanish
• SOV 52
• SVO 331 ?
• VSO 72 47
• VOS 109 21
• OVS 158 17
• OSV 38

138
Length characteristics nr of words

• Order Intitial Medial Final
• SOV 1.5 1.5
• SVO 2.5 3.8
• VSO 1.1 6.1
• VOS 1.3 5.0
• OVS 3.0 3.7
• OSV 3.3 1.1

139
Length characteristics nr of words

• Order Intitial Medial Final
• SOV 1.5 1.5
• SVO 2.5 3.8
• VSO 1.1 6.1
• VOS 1.3 5.0
• OVS 3.0 3.7
• OSV 3.3 1.1

140
Polish Spanish

• VSO VOS similar to Polish
• OVS not clear
• SVO a range of pragmatic uses similar

141
Average EIC rations

• SVO 90
• SOV 81
• VSO 86
• VOS 84
• OVS 76
• 0SV - 69

142
Interpretation

• processing underlies the preference for SVO order
  in Polish.
• the lower average EIC scores for the other
  transitive patterns suggest that it is not
  processing ease that motivates the choice of a
  non-SVO pattern over an SVO one
• SOV, VSO and OSV always have lower EIC ratios
  than the corresponding SVO order would have had.
• OVS and VOS may score higher than SVO, but only
  when the subject is longer than the object and
  the object consists of a single word

143
EIC predicitions Polish data

• SVO order as the basic (grammaticalized) order
  should be overall most preferred in terms of
  processing ease - correct
• the non-SVO orders should be resorted to only
  when the use of SVO order is not optimal for
  processing - incorrect
• given the weight characteristics of the subject
  and object, the non-SVO order chosen should be
  easier to process than the SVO alternative would
  be incorrect In 79 of the cases), but

144
EIC predictions

• each of the transitive patterns tends to be
  favoured under weight conditions which allow the
  given pattern to achieve higher rather than lower
  EIC ratios
• in all it is not only the EIC that provides the
  motivation for word order variation in Polish

145
Polish data pragmatic principles

• More predictable gt less predictable
• Predictability referential distance measured in
  terms of distance between current mention of
  referent and previous mention in terms of number
  of clauses (a bit simplistic)
• More important gt less important
• Importance topic persistence measured in terms
  of number of successive clauses following current
  clause featuring the referent (a bit simplistic)

146
Average Referential distance nr clauses

• Order Intitial Medial Final
• SOV 4.6 5.3
• SVO 7.5 13.3
• VSO 3.3 16.8
• VOS 3.4 16.7
• OVS 7.0 14.5
• OSV 7.0 6.3

147
Average Topic persistence in nr clauses

• Order Intitial Medial Final
• SOV 1.69 0.65
• SVO 1.02 0.68
• VSO 0.56 1.11
• VOS 0.50 0.94
• OVS 0.49 0.88
• OSV 0.37 0.92

148
More gt less predictable
149
Shortgt long
150
Length vs pragmatics

• short/given gt long/new
• short gt long 52
• more predicable gt less predictable 62
• biggest differences
• OVS 49 contravene short gt long 10 contravene
  more predictable gt less predictable
• OSV 84 contravene short gt long 34 contravene
  more predictable gt less predictable
• diverging predictions of short gt long and more
  predictable gt less predictable for 49 (372
  clauses) of the cases in the corpus pragmatic
  principle is correct in 48 (180/372), length in
  28 (103/372)

151
Processing Ease vs. Pragmatics

• Both clearly relevant
• Which wins out?
• Text type
• Investigations of Polish word order on written
  texts (expository and fiction)
• Processing ease most evident in on line
  processing spoken language

152
Back to Spanish

• Spanish wo is less flexible than Polish
• The same principles seem to apply
• Conditions of use of VSO, VOS
• TU
• EIC
• Major differences
• Extensive case marking in Polish
• No clitic doubling in Polish

153
Summary

• Spanish and English are SVO lgs
• English SV VO
• Spanish SV/VS VO
• Differences in wo flexibility is attributable to
  agreement
• At the phrase level less differences
• Spanish is slightly more HM than English
• Both lgs. reflect the TU and EIC
• Which is stronger?

154
References

• Clements, J.C. (2006). Primary and Secondary
  object marking in Spanish. In , 115 -133.
• Dryer, M. 1991. "The Greenbergian word order
  correlations". Language 68, 81-138.
• File-Muriel, R.J. (2006). Spanish adjective
  position differences between written and spoken
  discourse, 203-218.
• Garcia-Miguel J.M. (1995). Transitividad y
  complementacion preposicional en español.
  Universudad de Santiago de Compostela (verba,
  anexo 40).
• Givón, Talmy (ed.), (1983). Topic continuity in
  discourse. Amsterdam John Benjamins.
• Greenberg, Joseph. (1963) Some universals of
  grammar with particular reference to the order of
  meanigful elements. in Greenberg, Joseph (ed.),
  Universals of Human Language, 73-113, Cambridge
  MIT Press.

155
References

• Greenberg, Joseph. (1963) Some universals of
  grammar with particular reference to the order of
  meanigful elements. in Greenberg, Joseph (ed.),
  Universals of Human Language, 73-113, Cambridge
  MIT Press.
• Hawkins, J.A. (1994). A performance theory of
  order and constiuency. Cambridge Cambridge
  University Press.
• Myhill, J. (1992). Typological Disocurse
  Analysis. Oxford Blackwell.
• Ocampo, F. 1995. The word order of two
  constituent constructions in spoken Spanish. In
  P. Downing M. Noonan (eds.), Word Order in
  Discourse. Amsterdam John Benjamins, 425-448.

156
References

• Siewierska, A. (1988). Word Order Rules. London
  Croom Helm.
• Siewierska, A. (1993). Syntactic weight vs
  pragmatic factors and word order variation in
  Polish. Journal of Linguistics.
• Siewierska, Anna (ed.), (1997). Constituent Order
  in the Languages of Europe. Berlin Mouton de
  Gruyter.