Re: Metaconlinguistic terminology et alia

At 12:32 pm -0700 4/7/99, Sally Caves wrote:
>Leo J. Moser wrote:
>>
>> do we know if PIE was SOV or SVO or ....  ?
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>I believe I've read that Indo-European was originally
>SOV, so it stands to reason that Proto-Indo European
>may have been also.
That's what I've understood also, tho I have to admit I don't know the full
evidence.  Certainly in both ancient Greek & Latin there was a tendency to
favor SOV, especially in subordinate clauses.  From what I understand,
Germanic is supposed to have preserved the PIE order in subordinate
clauses, but the verb as second idea in main clauses is supposed to be a
Germanic innovation.

But, placing verb last in subordinate clauses is a very useful clause-end
marker, so as a mere amateur I have to skeptical about generalizing from
word order in subordinate clauses.  That SVO is more marked there is no
surprise to me.

What does Sanskrit do?

What is the evidence for PIE worder order?

Ray.


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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
[J.G.Hamann - 1760]
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