2

In another question someone pointed out, that at least some slavic languages use word order to express the grammatical category of definitiveness.

For instance in Polish:

This example has been flagged by some as incorrect, but my expertise is too limited to evaluate

  • maly pies a small dog

  • pies maly the small dog

Do you know futher examples of languages with free word order, highly flectional languages like Balto-Slavic, Ancient Greek or Sanskrit or agglutinative languages like Korean and Japanese with a free word order except for the predicate or others that use word order to convey some additional meaning?

Improve this question
5
  • 2
    The Polish example isn't correct. Generally word order in free word order languages doesn't express any category except for topic-focus articulation.
    – Atamiri
    Mar 17, 2017 at 23:45
  • By free word order, do you mean constituent order or the order of words within constituents? Because by free word order we generally mean the former, but your example belongs to the latter...
    – WavesWashSands
    Mar 18, 2017 at 4:02
  • Are constituents the same as phrases here?
    – Abdul Al Hazred
    Mar 18, 2017 at 9:49
  • @AbdulAlHazred You can think of it that way, yes. Constituents don't always have to be phrases, but those cases are not really relevant here.
    – WavesWashSands
    Mar 19, 2017 at 4:15
  • 1
    @WavesWashSands While the Polish example is incorrect, I would dare to say there is actually very little free word order in Slavic languages exactly because the word order is used to express the topic/focus distinction and if you switch it, then the contextual meaning is different and phrase, while by itself grammatical, cannot be used in the greater context of the communication.
    – Eleshar
    Mar 21, 2017 at 21:20

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
4

To my knowledge Japanese has the feature you are looking for, provided that you consider such things as topicalization and focalization to be good examples of "additional meaning".

In Japanese, the predicate is always final, while the order of the pre-verbal NPs is quite free. The topicalized or focalized constituent always comes first. It's equivalent to the cleft construction in English but with no special additional phrasing needed (explicit topic and focus markers can be possibly, but not obligatorily, used).

Some examples:

  • Ano mise de hon o Taroo ga katta "In that store, Tarō has bought the book"
  • Hon o ano mise de Taroo ga katta "It is a book that Tarō has bought in that store"
  • Taroo ga hon o ano mise de katta "Tarō has bought the book in that store"
Improve this answer
3
  • What is focalization?
    – Abdul Al Hazred
    Mar 21, 2017 at 9:47
  • @AbdulAlHazred I am not sure this term does exist officially but what I mean is the sort of emphasis that you apply to a certain constituent in order to underline its communicative status of new information. In English you would use the cleft construction in such occasions: It is in this store that John bought that book.
    – Artemij Keidan
    Mar 21, 2017 at 10:03
  • @AbdulAlHazred There is a relatively free positioning of the focused/topical constituents even in English, but only with adjuncts. Compare the following sentences: I went there yesterday vs. Yesterday I went there.
    – Artemij Keidan
    Mar 21, 2017 at 10:10
2

From German

German is a verb second (for main clauses)/verb final (for subordinate clauses) language. But when a put the inflected verb in the first position, you turn a statement into a question. Example:

Er geht heute zur Arbeit. (He goes to work today)
Geht er heute zur Arbeit? (Does he go to work today?)
Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.