Re: theory (was: Re: Greenberg's Word Order Universals)

In a message dated 2000:09:18 11:28:22 AM, pearson@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU writes:

>Raymond Brown wrote:
>
>> <SNiP> it might
>> be a good idea to start from a few other languages, especially non-IE
>ones to test the theory
    I have yet to see good info on Lisu, a Sino-Tibetan language
(Lolo-Burmese, actually) that reportedly is free word order AND isolating AND
has no morphological cases to  mark Subject or Object!
    Now that - if this is in fact true - Lisu violates a good number of
theories of implicational universals.
    According to what I have read Lisu-speakers get by on context,
alternative grammatical structures and common sense alone (I imagine they are
a very gestural people as well... that body language has a lot to do with
their language).

    czHANg