Re: Branching typologies [was: Re: "easiest" languages, SE Asian word-order typologies]

Quoting Roger Mills <romilly@...>:

> Kou wrote:
>
> >From: "Thomas R. Wier"
> >
> >> You know what -- we should compile a brief synopsis of all types
> >> of conlinguistic typologies.  It would shed some light not so much
> >> on language, but rather more likely, on the conlanger population.
> >
> >[Géarthnuns is SOV] and right-branching (I never *quite* got this
> term)?
>
> It tends to confuse me,  too.
So I understand, it's simply a way of saying from which end of a
constituent phrase that phrase's head tends to be placed.  English
is considered a mostly right-branching language, since the head of
phrases tends to be put at the beginning, and the associated words
and subordinate phrases branch off to the right of that.  Take, for
example a sentence like (1):

(1) John met the man.

From this alone, you can't tell much:  the head (the verb) seems to
suggest that it's right-branching because within the verb phrase itself,
the verb comes first, and its complement (the man) second.  On the other
hand, on the sentence level, the entire verb phrase *follows* its
complementizer (the subject John). But expand that sentence and look
again:

(2) John met the man in the hall that had been handing out fliers
    about the upcoming game.

Here, clearly, the verb phrase is tending to branch off to the right,
since the PP "in the hall" and the relative clause both follow the
the verb just like the complement NP, "the man".  Most languages aren't
entirely consistent in this respect: within an NP like "a big red balloon",
the head of the NP, "balloon", is to the right of its complementizers,
which branch off to the left of it.  But indeed, this is a peculiarity
of English: in most languages that have SVO order (like English), the
adjectives and other modifiers usually follow the noun, branching off
the right.

That, at least, is how I understand the situation.  I may be wrong
on many points here.

==============================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...>

"If a man demands justice, not merely as an abstract concept,
but in setting up the life of a society, and if he holds, further,
that within that society (however defined) all men have equal rights,
then the odds are that his views, sooner rather than later, are going
to set something or someone on fire." Peter Green, in _From Alexander
to Actium_, on Spartan king Cleomenes III

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