Re: R: Re: Greenberg's universals

Dan Sulani wrote:

> Semitic, VSO? Examples, please?
> The Hebrew that I am exposed to daily
> seems pretty SVO to me!
You're right, of course.  Biblical Hebrew was VSO, as is (IIRC) Classical
Arabic.  Most modern varieties of these languages have drifted towards SVO, but
otherwise preserve the core typological properties of VSO languages.  (VSO
order has been preserved in the Berber languages, which are generally believed
to be related to the Semitic languages.)

Semitic is actually pretty fluid when it comes to word order types:  The
Ethiopian Semitic languages are all SOV...


> FWIW, Hebrew has a definite article
> and lacks the indefinite article.
> (I believe that the situation in Arabic is similar.)
It is.  For what it's worth, I don't know of any VSO languages with
*indefinite* articles, just definite ones.  I don't know what, if anything,
this means.  (Of course, indefinite articles--distinct from the word for
"one"--seem to be rather rare.)

Matt.