"Free" word order (was Re: Greek definite article (was Re: Addendum: a holy spirit))

>That is my impression as well. Either order would work, though -- "to
>pnevma einai ayio" would be the usual form (the spirit is holy), but
>"ayio einai to pnevma" would correspond, as in English, to the marked
>(for emphasis or style) "holy is the spirit".
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Don't you just love "free" word order languages? Out of interest, how
many people have current conlangs with word order determined by
pragmatics rather than a fixed word order? And if focus/topic/other
factor determine your word order, have you worked out the rules in
detail? What's the focus position? Topic position (if there is one)? etc
I have seen languages where people just specify "free" word order
without giving any guide to how exactly the pragmatics affect the order,
which really isn't helpful, since the rules applied do seem to vary from
language to language in ordering the "free" arguments of the verb.

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