From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 21295
Date: 2003-04-27
----- Original Message -----
From: "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2003 2:31 PM
Subject: [tied] Got to thinkin' about word order
> IE doesn't seem to have the typical order that an SOV language should have (such as the placement of the negative before the verb, and relative particles placed before the clause).
What makes you think that *ne wasn't placed before the verb? In nearly all the branches it's placed just there (even the Anglo-Saxons still said <ic ne sitte> for 'I'm not sitting'). The word-order of relative clauses is no so easily reconstructible, but I see nothing in the syntax of the oldest IE languages to contradict the OV character of PIE. For example, the verb clearly tends to occupy the clause-final position, and relative clauses are consistently preposed in Hittite and in Rigvedic Old Indic.
Piotr