typology of V-initial lgs

On Sun, 21 Nov 1999, Kristian Jensen wrote:

> Nik Taylor wrote:
> >Interesting.  AFAIK, there are no natlangs with postpositions and VSO
> >order.
>
> They do exist, but are extremely rare. Yagua, the only surviving member
> of the Peba-Yaguan languages spoken in the amazon basin of Peru is just
> such a language. On the other side of the same continent is another
> called Guajajara of the Tupi-Guarani family. I wonder, is this a
> specifically South American phenomenon?
Hmmm. Mayan languages are also V-initial, but they are prepositional. I
wonder if there's areal influence on the languages you mention as well,
where they were originally SOV or something, but shifted to V-initial. I
just posted something in response to Nik about V-initial, postpositional
languages in Southern Uto-Aztecan, where it's pretty clear that areal
influence from Mayan (and Zapotecan, IIRC) is responsible for the shift
to V-initial order.

> Incidentally, Boreanesian is a type 8 language too. Dirk, I get the
> feeling that Tepa is a type 8 language too, no?
Except for the attributive adjective following the head noun. Since
adjectives are really stative verbs, they are initial, and thus
modified nouns are really relative clauses; this means that Tepa has
head-internal relatives ... I'm getting dizzy. I'd better go lie down.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu