The universal base hypothesis: VO or OV?

The universal base hypothesis: VO or OV?*

The universal base hypothesis postulates that all languages have the same underlying word order, which is advantageous because it simplifies language acquisition. According to Kayne’s (1994) Linear Correspondence Axiom (LCA), this order is VO so that the OV-languages are derived by leftward movement of various types of VP-internal constituents: DP-objects, PP-objects, predicative phrases, etc. ...

SVO languages and the OV : VO typology ' MATTHEW

Greenberg (i963) formulated a number of implicational universals that refer to the order of various syntactic elements. He classified languages on the basis of their order of subject, object and verb into three types, which he labelled I, II and III, and which correspond to what are commonly known as VSO, SVO and SOV languages, respectively. Since that time, evidence for the existence of the th...

THE NEW COMPARATIVE SYNTAX The Germanic SOV Languages and the Universal Base Hypothesis

Different Phrasal Prominence Realizations in Vo and Ov Languages

How do infants start learning the syntax of the language they are exposed to? In this paper, we examine a plausible mechanism for the acquisition of the relative order of heads and complements. We hypothesize that the iambic-trochaic law determines the physical realization of main prominence within phonological phrases that contain more than one word: if it is realized mainly through pitch and ...

Universal grammar and the innateness hypothesis

A critical study of the arguments for and against the hypothesis that human beings are born with an innate universal grammar, with some brief discussions of alternative theories.