Re: [tied] SVO - SOV

From: Marc Verhaegen
Message: 7078
Date: 2001-04-12

Attachments :
SOV was the predominant PIE word-order. Of course there are only six possible permutations of S, V and O, and the three most common ones _by far_ are SVO, SOV and VSO (there is a universal preference for placing the subject before the object). This means, among other things, that chance agreement of word-order types occurs very often.        Piotr
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German & Dutch are between SVO & SOV (conjugated-verb-second languages, as was Medieval French AFAIK: first the topic, then the conjugated verb, then the subject if the first word was not the subject: Tv(S)O(V)). Modern Dutch is more SOV than Medieval Dutch was. So I don't think there's much Hunnic influence.    Marc
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  Of the Germanic languages, English and the Scandinavian languages
are SVO, and German and Dutch (partially) SOV.
  Hunnic, being Turkic, was probably SOV.
  On the Catalaunian Fields, some Germanic tribes fought with Aëthius
and the Romans, some with Attila and the Huns.
  Coincidence? Adstrate?
  I read somewhere that the oldest Runic inscriptions are VSO and
SOV, later changing to SVO.

  Torsten


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