asteartea, urtarrila 12, 2021

Bingfu Lu (1998): "In short, the drift from OV to VO is motivated by the processing ease."

Mintzatuz buruz evoluzio sintaktikoa eta prozesamendua, gogora daigun a sarrera titulatzén "... the drift from OV to VO is motivated by the processing ease (Bingfu Lu)") non Bingfu Lu hizkuntzalari txinarrak egiten digu ondorengo azalpen tentatibo interesgarria respektu evoluzio sintaktiko orokorra:

Frederick Newmeyer-ek ("one of the first generativists to call attention to the ideas of the functionalist wing of the field") zioen honako hau an 1998:

One might even conclude that the OV preference is a remnant of a 'proto-world' OV (caused by what?), which functional forces (but what functional forces?) are skewing gradually to VO. And, indeed, linguists coming from a variety of direction (Venneman, Givon, Bichakjian, and others) have concluded something very much along those lines.
Bingfu Lu hizkuntzalariak erantzun zion honela
I venture to posting my tentative opinions below:
1.
There may be several reasons for proto-languages to tend be OV rather than VO. For instance, OV and SV are harmonious. Both O and S are dependents of the head V. Languages prefer OV over VO just like they prefer SV over VS.

2.
Proto-languages are expected to be simple in terms of nominal expressions. However, along with the developing of NP internal structure and the extension of the size of NP, the pressure to move large NP to the end of sentence increases too. Between S and O, O is more likely to be heavy. That is why O, but not S, tend to postpone.

Matthew Dryer 1980's "The Positional Tendencies of Sentential Noun Phrases in Universal Grammar." (Canadian Journal of Linguistics 25: 12-195) argues that postposing of sentential NPs is overall preferred over preposing. Languages only resort to preposing when postposing would violate the rigid V-final order.

3.
In addition, a heavy O is normally a piece of new information. New information tends to appear later in the sentence. Therefore, everything else being equal, a heavy O tends postpone rather than prepose.

4.
On the other hand, if a language starts with SVO order, there seems no obvious motivation to drift to SOV, unless O is a pronominal or clitic. 

In short, the drift from OV to VO is motivated by the processing ease.

Bai, evidentziak sendoki dioskue ze prozesamendu-kostuak dúte jokatzen paper estelarra an korronte nagusia e evoluzio sintaktikoa, nahiz existitu hainbat restrikzio galgátuz haien eragina. []

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