Languages & Linguistics
Object Subject Verb
"Object Subject Verb" refers to the word order in a sentence where the object comes before the verb. This word order is commonly found in languages such as Japanese and Turkish. In this structure, the subject typically follows the verb. This word order is different from the more common Subject Verb Object order found in English and many other languages.
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4 Key excerpts on "Object Subject Verb"
eBook - PDFDiachronic Studies on Information Structure
Language Acquisition and Change
- Gisella Ferraresi, Rosemarie Lühr, Gisella Ferraresi, Rosemarie Lühr(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter(Publisher)
We have seen that a striking difference in the pragmatic status of subject and object exists in OVS, where the subject is the non-topical constituent. In the example of OVS in (7), O is a second person pronoun ( tvā ̗ m “you”), while S has an inanimate referent, such as gírah ̠ “songs”. Unlike in SVO, in SOV the object is assigned a certain degree of topi-cality, that is, it usually refers to human or animate items, which are repre-sented higher than inanimate items on the Hierarchy. In (17), the animate referents of the object, i.e. the gods, persist as topical participants in this hymn: cf. stanza 4 “he goes among the gods” ( sá íd devés ̚ u gachati ); 5 “he, the god, may come here with the gods” ( devó devébhir ā ̗ gamat ). A different situation can be identified in OSV, the other verb-final construction. On the one hand, in this order O outranks S in topicality, similarly to what happens to other object-initial orders. The OSV clause “Praises increased you” in (20), for example, is coordinated with a similar OVS clause such as “May our songs increase you” reported in (7). On the other hand, transitivity is relatively higher in OSV than in OVS. In our examples, (7) shows an imperative, while (20) has the aorist, which per se is more typical of subject-initial orders than of object-initial orders. In an analysis of the OSV word order in the Rig-Veda (Viti 2009), we observed that in the majority of cases the subject has a human referent like the ob-ject in this order, as can be seen in the second OSV clause that is attested in the Rig-Veda: “Indra the singers … glorified” ( índram íd gāthíno ... anū ߅ ata ). Thus, OSV is similar to other object-initial orders such as OVS in presenting the object as more topical than the subject, but at the same time the difference in topicality between S and O is not as dramatic in OSV as it is in OVS. Carlotta Viti 52 The two verb-initial patterns, VSO and VOS, can be also conceived as mirror-images of each other.
eBook - PDFSubject Positions and Interfaces
The Case of European Portuguese
- João Costa(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
34 Postverbal subjects: syntax and discourse – VSO and VOS orders From the tests above, I conclude that in VOS context, subjects occupy the Spec,VP position. The difference between VSO and VOS will be derived in terms of object scrambling in the latter, in accordance with the evidence to be presented in section 3. A comparison between the scrambling analysis and an analysis involving remnant-IP movement, along the lines of Kayne (1998) will provide further evidence in favor of the claim that subjects in VOS are in Spec, VP. At this point, it is possible to tell which position the subject occupies in each of the attested word orders. The conclusions reached so far are the following: 1. Preverbal subjects occupy the Spec,IP position; like all other arguments, it can be left-dislocated in some contexts. 2. Postverbal subjects in VSO context may be in Spec, VP 3. Postverbal subjects in VOS without intonation break between the object and the subject are in Spec, VP In the next section, the position of objects in VOS sentences, which is cru-cial for the analysis of this word order, will be discussed. 3.3. Objects in VOS: Scrambling in European Portuguese In the preceding section, I have assumed without providing arguments that Portuguese VOS orders involve object scrambling across the subject. In this section, I will motivate that assumption, arguing that it is possible to identify similarities between scrambling in European Portuguese and the well-known scrambling configurations in Dutch and German. In order to achieve this goal, I will first show some properties of scrambling in Dutch and German. This will establish the grounds for a comparison between Portuguese and Dutch/German, and determine how to trace scrambling in a VO language. As mentioned in the previous section, if the scrambling analysis is on the right track, there will be further evidence in favor of the claim that the sub-ject may be stranded in Spec, VP in EP.
eBook - PDF- Claire Moyse-Faurie, Joachim Sabel, Claire Moyse-Faurie, Joachim Sabel(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Part one: Sentential syntax and sentence types Deriving linear order in OV/VO languages: evidence from Oceanic languages Joachim Sabel 1. Introduction VOS/VSO languages often show mirror image ordering with respect to word order phenomena in the predicate phrase and in DP compared to SOV/SVO lan-guages. This will be illustrated with respect to adverb/PP/adjective order, double objects and on the basis of data on focus/background (information) structure. It will be shown that a unified analysis for these phenomena in SOV/SVO/VOS languages based on the parametric option of having either roll-up or head move-ment, as has been proposed in the literature, is incompatible with data found in Oceanic VOS languages such as Fijian (i.e., the North-West Viti Levu vari-ant) and Kiribati (Gilbertese). Although many languages linearize arguments and adjuncts in the predicate phrase in a unitary way, Kiribati and North-West Fijian use different strategies for arguments in double object constructions and for adjuncts. The following generalizations concerning adjunct/argument order are for-mulated: Adverbs, PP-adverbials and adjectives following the head they modify appear in inverted order compared to adjuncts preceding the head. The order of arguments (in double object constructions) is determined independently of the order of adjuncts. The theoretical consequences of the empirical generalizations for analyses deriving linear order in SOV/SVO and verb-initial languages are discussed. Another new generalization of the present study of word order is that all Austronesian verb-initial languages that will be discussed realize informational focus in a position preceding background in the post-verbal domain. In this re-spect, the verb-initial VO-languages differ from SVO and SOV languages which are all focus-final.
eBook - ePubNew Perspectives on Mixed Languages
From Core to Fringe
- Maria Mazzoli, Eeva Sippola, Maria Mazzoli, Eeva Sippola(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
VO vs. OV: What conditions word order variation in Media Lengua?
Isabel DeibelThe Pennsylvania State UniversityAcknowledgements: This research was supported by a LeClaire (Lee) B. Watts Endowed Scholarship in Romance Languages, a Penn State Center for Global Studies Fellowship, and a Penn State External Funding Incentive Award. I am particularly grateful for the help of Gabriel Cachimuel, José María Casco and Antonio Maldonado during data collection, and I thank John M. Lipski and Rena Torres Cacoullos for their guidance and support with this project, and Jesse Stewart for providing helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.1 Introduction
Every thought that a speaker wishes to communicate needs to be linguistically encoded in a specific linear order. While there are various possible orders of subject (S), verb (V) and object (O) in transitive declarative clauses, the majority of the world’s languages follow two predominant word orders: (S)OV (565/1377, e.g. Quechua,1 Basque, Japanese) and (S)VO (488/1377, e.g. English, Spanish), with some (189/1377, e.g. German, Dutch) allowing more than one predominant order (Comrie 1989 ; Dryer 2013 ; see also Goldin-Meadow et al. 2008 ; Langus and Nespor 2010 ; Schouwstra and de Swart 2014 ). If more than one order is possible in a language, variation in constituent order may be conditioned by pragmatic-stylistic factors (e.g. emphasis) or related to language contact.This paper examines word order variation in Media Lengua, a mixed language spoken in Highland Ecuador. In the Imbabura province (Northern Ecuador), Media Lengua has been documented in three communities: Angla, Casco Valenzuela and Pijal. These three villages are close to San Pablo del Lago, lying within a radius of 5 mi/8 km. Many participants in the current data set as well as in data collected by other authors indicate that close family and commercial ties between these three communities may have led to the spread of Media Lengua from Pijal to Angla and Casco Valenzuela (Stewart 2011 ; Lipski 2016 ; Deibel 2019 ). In addition, previous research has noted that speakers in Pijal appear to have shifted more to Spanish (Gómez Rendón 2008b ; Müller 2011 ; Lipski 2016
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