Introducing English Linguistics

he likes,
and I imagine Dylan likes him.
(“An Interview with Bryan Ferry,” www.nyrock.com/interviews/
2002/ferry_int.asp, accessed, June 5, 2008)
In the last sentence, there are two clauses – one illustrating SVO word
order (Dylan likes him), the other OSV word order (Dylan, he likes). The clause
with SVO order is unmarked because it represents the most frequently
occurring word order in English and would not necessarily require any
context to be considered acceptable. The clause with OSV order, on the
other hand, is marked and definitely needs some kind of context to be
fully acceptable. Specifically, clauses with OSV word order in English are
often used to promote topicalization – the positioning of the discourse
topic in the first position of a clause.
As the interview opens, the discourse topic – who or what is being dis-
cussed – is Bob Dylan. As the interview proceeds, the topic shifts to Dave
Stewart, who is described as a friend of Bob Dylan. Dave Stewart continues
as topic until the interviewee reintroduces Bob Dylan as topic by men-
tioning him at the start of the clause in the last sentence (Dylan, he likes).
Notice that once Dylan is reintroduced as topic, he remains the topic in a
subsequent clause (Dylan likes him) with SVO word order.
In other cases, determining a dominant word order can be more diffi-
cult, particularly in languages that mark case on nouns. Because English
The development of English
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has lost so many case markers, word order is rather fixed. Thus, in English,
a sentence such as The boy called the girl is completely different in meaning
than The girl called the boy. However, in languages that mark case on nouns,
it is relatively easy to move constituents around without a change in
meaning. In Russian, for instance, all of the sentences below are synony-
mous because the subject of the sentence is marked for the nominative
case and the object for the accusative case.
(8) a. Mal’
iki
itaujut
knigi
SVO
boys-
NOM
read
books-
ACC
b. Mal’
iki
knigi
itaujut
SOV
c. Knigi
mal’
iki
itaujut
OSV
d. Knigi
itaujut
mal’
iki
OVS
e.
itaujut
mal’
iki
knigi
VSO
f.
itaujut
knigi
mal’
iki
VOS
(Examples taken from Bailyn 2003: 157)
Because Russian permits so many different word orders, many have
argued that it is a free word order language (i.e. that it has no dominant
order). However, others, such as Bailyn (2003), claim that Russian is an SVO
language, and variations from this order are motivated by contextual fac-
tors, such as topicalization.
In German, grammatical rather than contextual factors cause variable
word orders, making it difficult to determine whether German is an SVO
language or an SOV language. In main clauses, while variations similar to
Russian occur, the predominant word order is SVO and deviations from
this order are contextually motivated. In subordinate clauses, in contrast,
there is a grammatical rule in German that stipulates that all parts of the
verb phrase have to occur at the end of a clause. Thus, in the example
below, the word order is SVO in the main clause but SOV in the subordi-
nate clause beginning with because:
(9) Die Frau mag Käse, weil ihr Kind Käse mag.
Literal Translation: ‘The woman likes cheese because her child cheese
likes’
Because the variant word orders illustrated above are grammatically
rather than contextually motivated, Comrie (1989: 89) comments that
“controversy continues to rage over which, if any, of these word orders
should be considered basic.”