Re: Word Order in typology

Quoting Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>:

> >
> >
> >>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.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Most actual language universals are conditional.
> >
> >
> >
> 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)
Just interpret the condition as "If there is a main word order that is SOV then
...". Some Iranian MRL languages, we're told, have no syntactic or grammatical
way of telling transitive subject and object apart, which must mean there's no
"standard" way of ordering subject and object, and thus no universal pertaining
to a given basic order could apply to them - it's not clear why a language
lacking the category of subject entirely should cause any greater problem.

                                           Andreas

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