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4 - The SOV Mystery and Language Evolution

from Part I - The Evolution of Syntax

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2025

By
Thomas Givón
Edited by
Dany Adone  and
Astrid Gabel
Dany Adone
Affiliation:
Universität zu Köln
Astrid Gabel
Affiliation:
Universität zu Köln
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Summary

Givón’s chapter presents an evolutionary hypothesis suggesting that the earliest rigid word order in human language must have been (S)OV. The hypothesis is supported first by synchronic distributional data suggesting that the vast majority of known language families can be easily reconstructed to SOV on purely internal grounds. Unlike the vast majority of VO languages, SOV languages show no reconstructible traces of any prior VO word order. What is more, a non-contact-induced drift from VO to OV has yet to be conclusively documented. The chapter offers a cultural-communicative explanation of why the early evolved word order of human language must have been SOV, as well as why it has been drifting away from that early order ever since, first to free (pragmatically determined) word order, then to V-first (VSO, VOS), and eventually to SVO. Why some languages have never undergone this drift remains an open question, perhaps related to isolation and/or cultural conservatism.

Keywords

language evolutionSOVcultural-communicative explanationword order driftdiachronyontogeny and evolution
Type
Chapter
Information
The Evolution, Acquisition and Development of Syntax
Insights from Creole Languages and Beyond
 , pp. 49 - 73
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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