Re: Word Order in typology

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>>The condition talks of a surface realization which may not be exhibited
>>in a given language, so the universal is not applicable to all
>>languages, and thus flawed, since the whole point is to try to find
>>phenoma true of all (or at least 99.9%) of languages.
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>Most actual language universals are conditional.
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Yes, but the important thing is that the conditions are in fact
verifiable... if I have a universal like

If the main word order is SOV then....

then there is an implicit unmentioned assumption that the term subject
is meaningful in terms of every language, because if it has little
meaning or bearing on word order, then this condition has no meaning!
You really ought to mention your assumptions, because that's a very
important part of anything claiming to be a science. So if you really
have to keep wording it in terms of subjects it should be:

If a language has subject as a meaningful concept etc.... (insert other
assumptions), and the main word order is SOV, then.... (insert implication)

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