I've read somewhere that all known ergative languages are either verb-initial, or verb-final. I find this surprising, but I don't know of any counter-examples.

I've seen plenty of nominative languages, and it seems like they can have the verb anywhere. Well, I don't know about languages that have an OS (object, then subject order, as in OVS, OSV, and VOS), but I've never seen such languages so I don't know.

Does alignment somehow restrict what kinds of orders a language can use? I find it hard to believe that ergativity would force a language into a verb-peripheral order, considering that the nominative alignment clearly isn't as restricted (assuming it is at all).

I started thinking about after wondering about split-ergative languages, specifically the kind that treat noun phrases either nominatively or ergatively depending on where they fall on the agentivity heirarchy (dyirbal is the only example I can seem to find, and it has SOV order as far as I can tell, but the only sentences I've been able to find have only pronouns).

I've read somewhere that all known ergative languages are either verb-initial, or verb-final. I find this surprising, but I don't know of any counter-examples.

I've seen plenty of nominative languages, and it seems like they can have the verb anywhere. Well, I don't know about languages that have an OS (object, then subject order, as in OVS, OSV, and VOS), but I've never seen such languages so I don't know.

Does alignment somehow restrict what kinds of orders a language can use? I find it hard to believe that ergativity would force a language into a verb-peripheral order, considering that the nominative alignment clearly isn't as restricted (assuming it is at all).

I started thinking about after wondering about split-ergative languages, specifically the kind that treat noun phrases either nominatively or ergatively depending on where they fall on the agentivity hierarchy (Dyirbal is the only example I can seem to find, and it has SOV order as far as I can tell, but the only sentences I've been able to find have only pronouns).

edit: By 'agentivity hierarchy' I mean that some split-ergative languages treat some nouns nominatively and some ergatively. For example, Dyribal treats first and second pronouns nominatively, while everything else is treated ergatively. Another language I know of, called Ritharngu (which I can't find much information about) treats all pronouns nominatively, humans and 'higher animals' are tripartite, while everything is treated ergatively.

Page 120 of the Language Construction Kit 2 gives a heirarchy of agentivity, and claims that all languages with split alignment place the split somewhere on the heirarchy. The order is: verbal agreement, first person, second person, third person, proper nouns, humans, animals, and inanimate objects. Basically if two of these categories are given the same alignment, then everything between them will have the same alignment.