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Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you : on the typological similarities of object-initial languages

Rosholm, Thomas LU (2016) ALSK11 20142
General Linguistics
Abstract
The thesis examined typological similarities across the fifteen languages listed on the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) website as having object-initial constituent orders in transitive clauses. Based on previous work by Derbyshire (1981, 1987) and Andersen (1988), who have attempted to account for diachronic developments in Hixkaryana and Päri respectively, a matrix was created to check relevant grammatical features for their diachronic accounts against the other object-initial languages entered into WALS.

Ultimately, OSV languages did not perform very well on the matrix but there were strong results for OVS languages. The strongest features, in terms of describing all the OVS languages, were verb-agreement with syntactic... (More)
The thesis examined typological similarities across the fifteen languages listed on the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) website as having object-initial constituent orders in transitive clauses. Based on previous work by Derbyshire (1981, 1987) and Andersen (1988), who have attempted to account for diachronic developments in Hixkaryana and Päri respectively, a matrix was created to check relevant grammatical features for their diachronic accounts against the other object-initial languages entered into WALS.

Ultimately, OSV languages did not perform very well on the matrix but there were strong results for OVS languages. The strongest features, in terms of describing all the OVS languages, were verb-agreement with syntactic roles accompanied by either flexible constituent order or frequently omitted nominals, but ergativity was also very prevalent among the languages. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Rosholm, Thomas LU
supervisor
organization
course
ALSK11 20142
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
language
English
id
8893507
date added to LUP
2016-10-26 09:36:06
date last changed
2016-11-08 13:33:33
@misc{8893507,
  abstract     = {{The thesis examined typological similarities across the fifteen languages listed on the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) website as having object-initial constituent orders in transitive clauses. Based on previous work by Derbyshire (1981, 1987) and Andersen (1988), who have attempted to account for diachronic developments in Hixkaryana and Päri respectively, a matrix was created to check relevant grammatical features for their diachronic accounts against the other object-initial languages entered into WALS.

Ultimately, OSV languages did not perform very well on the matrix but there were strong results for OVS languages. The strongest features, in terms of describing all the OVS languages, were verb-agreement with syntactic roles accompanied by either flexible constituent order or frequently omitted nominals, but ergativity was also very prevalent among the languages.}},
  author       = {{Rosholm, Thomas}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you : on the typological similarities of object-initial languages}},
  year         = {{2016}},
}