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1 results

  • 4 - The SOV Mystery and Language Evolution

  • from Part I - The Evolution of Syntax
  • Edited by Dany Adone, Universität zu Köln, Astrid Gabel, Universität zu Köln
  • Book:
    The Evolution, Acquisition and Development of Syntax
    Published online:
    19 February 2025
    Print publication:
    06 February 2025, pp 49-73

  • 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.