Re: deeply embedded VSO nightmare

 >> The Semitic langs are also basically
 >> VSO (perhaps not modern Hebrew) so some of the Arabists on the list should
 >> be able to help you out. >>
 >>
 >>     Uhhh...what?  Is this true?
 >
 >It's not true of the modern languages, but proto-Semetic is believed to
 >have been VSO.  I think Classical Arabic was VSO, altho the modern langs
 >are mostly SVO.

        Under the influence of Sumerian, Akkadian went SOV.
Everything else is mostly VSO, though perhaps I should say they *want*
to be.  Classical Arabic has a delightful confusion on this theme.

        If you have a 3rd person subject, in the normal VSO word
order, the verb is almost always going to be in the 3rd.masc.sing
form!  If you have a feminine plural noun as the subject, too bad.
Unless the subject is truly female, not just grammatically feminine,
and if it follows the verb immediately, in which case you use the
3.f. verb form.  *But*, most plurals in Arabic (so called "broken"
plurals, walad > awlaad) are grammatically feminine singular nouns
(mass nouns originally, it seems) and with these sometimes you get
3m.singular, sometimes 3f.singular.

        If you decide to go SVO, then the verb will agree in the
expected way with the subject noun.

        I adore Arabic -- largely for the music -- but these sorts of
confusions are mindbending.

--
wm