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Re: Greenberg's universals for SVO languages & Caos Pidgin ruff-sketch

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Saturday, September 9, 2000, 5:34
Marcus Smith wrote:
> >Here's a few more.
(The run-down for Kash is given in CAPS:)
>-- case is less common, and when present, usually doesn't not follow an >ergative pattern. CASE YES, ERG. NO >-- often have definite articles (OV languages tend not to). ONE, OF LIMITED
USE
>-- demonstratives, numerals, and adjectives follow the noun in that order
or
>the opposite order (adj, num, dem) LATTER YES, BUT NUMERALS PRECEDE >-- often have relative pronouns AN INVARIANT RELATIVE MARKER >-- conjunctions is of the form "X and X" rather than "and X and X" or "X
and X
>and", the former is rare, the later is (possibly) unattested. YES >-- prefixes are common for tense, case, etc. There are always some
suffixes
>though. BOTH >-- Subordinate clauses are often finite (e.g., "I want he goes" rather than
"I
>want him to go"). YES >
Well well. That makes Kash just about a perfect SVO language. It answers yes to all of czHANg's original post, as well as most of the above, as noted.