The similarity of word-order among the
Germanic languages is not due to coincidence but to common descent. Divergences
(such as those between English and German) are due to centuries of independent
development (and in particular to the generalisation of SVO patterns in
English). At the time when Germanic tribes were in contact with the Huns (and
for some time afteerwards) they had all the same type of syntax, for all intents
and purposes.
Choose two languages at random, even
unrelated ones, and the odds that they will have the same underlying word-order
is about 30% -- nothing to go tsk-tsk about. They may differ in the function and
relative frequency of derived patterns (underlying SVO does not always
surface as SVO, so I suppose you can say that syntactic types do come in
flavours).
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2001 4:00 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] SVO - SOV
I must have stumbled on one of those coincidences again. "Chance
agreements of word order types..." tsk, tsk. I suppose you are referring to that
chance similarity of word order in German and Dutch?
Torsten
[from another posting:] I thought SVO was SVO? Does it come in
flavors?