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Minhast: Difference between revisions
→Word Order
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=== Word Order === | === Word Order === | ||
Minhast is an SOV language, but within a clause, constituent order is quite free, although there are certain trends as well as restrictions. One noticeable trend is that core NPs | Minhast is an SOV language, but within a clause, constituent order is quite free, although there are certain trends as well as restrictions. One noticeable trend is that core NPs as arguments tend to be adjacent to each other. Oblique arguments tend to be placed after the core NPs but before, so that unmarked word order is SOXV (where X stands for the OBL argument). This observation can be verified statistically by reviewing of the corpus of texts and spoken speech, and this observation holds for almost 60%, close to one standard deviation of all text and recorded speech sampled. XSOV order is the second most common arrangement found, accounting for close to 20% of all observations. This order is typically used to introduce new information into the discourse. OSV and OSXV are used to emphasize the absolutive argument, accounting for 15%. OXSV orders tend to make speakers from the more conservative dialects in Upper Minhay cringe, although they will concede that those arrangements are grammatical. These arrangements account for the remaining 5% of observations. | ||
What is almost inviolable,at least in multi-clausal sentences, is the position of the verb's clause-final position. The main reason for this restriction is most likely because the verb, being extremely suffix-laden, includes clause-linking and coordinating affixes which occur in the Terminatives slot of the Minhast verb template. Thus, the verb serves to mark clause boundaries and coordinate compound and complex sentences, hence the predominance of the verb's clause-final position. Nevertheless, verbs do occur in non-final position under the following circumstances: | What is almost inviolable,at least in multi-clausal sentences, is the position of the verb's clause-final position. The main reason for this restriction is most likely because the verb, being extremely suffix-laden, includes clause-linking and coordinating affixes which occur in the Terminatives slot of the Minhast verb template. Thus, the verb serves to mark clause boundaries and coordinate compound and complex sentences, hence the predominance of the verb's clause-final position. Nevertheless, verbs do occur in non-final position under the following circumstances: | ||