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

From:The Gray Wizard <dbell@...>
Date:Saturday, September 9, 2000, 21:43
> From: Marcus Smith > > Tom Wier wrote: > > >> -- case is less common, and when present, usually doesn't not follow an > >> ergative pattern. > > > >Right -- although I believe the figure is about 25% that show some > ergativity, > >whether morphological (like Basque) or syntactic (like Dyirbal). > > According to Comrie, Dyirbal is not SVO. The examples Comrie > gives of Basque > do not show an SVO pattern either.
Actually, word order in Dyirbal is remarkably free, but there does exist a statistically favored order in which ergative NPs precede the verb and dative NPs follow the verb. David David E. Bell The Gray Wizard dbell@graywizard.net www.graywizard.net "Wisdom begins in wonder." - Socrates