Re: Weekly Vocab 7 in Kash (part)

Garrett Jones wrote:

> > > 7. jewelry cando-ningar 'body ornaments' (for now)
> > > I would like to go shopping for jewelry now.
> > tanju mamelo çemu cando-ningar
> > now I-want  shop   ornament-body
>
> are compounds head-first in kash?
Yes. As well as Noun-Adj., Possessed-Possessor, and Noun-Rel.clause.

i've played around with this a little in
> Minyeva and i'm debating whether to keep it or not. i want to know where i
> can find out more about this phenomenon in natlangs...
>
Supposedly it's one of those near-universal tendencies-- head-first
correlates with VO (so in VOS, VSO languages in particular).  SOV langs.
tend to be head last. Since SVO langs. seem to derive from either VSO or SOV
stages, they offer a mixed bag--- English/Germanic is head last, but
Indonesian is head first.  At least as I understand it.....

Google for "language universals".  I used to have a site (in Germany IIRC)
that lists 1000s of observed/proposed language universals.  Greenberg also
did a lot of work in the field