Abstract
Using data from the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS), the order of the oblique phrase with respect to the verb in a sentence is shown to be a good predictor of the order of the relative clause with respect to its head noun in a relative construction. It is a significantly better predictor of relative construction order than the more traditional indicator, the relative order of the verb and the direct object in a sentence. The difference between these two predictors is demonstrated quantitatively, and then discussed in the context of theories of syntactic head-position harmony.
Abbreviations
- 1
first person
- 2
second person
- 3
third person
- ~3
not third person (for Barasano)
- acc
accusative case
- af
actor focus (for Tsou)
- art
article
- bdt
Dryer’s Branching Direction Theory
- det
determiner
- dur
durative
- eic
Hawkins’ principle of Early Immediate Constituents
- fut
future tense
- irreal
irrealis
- immed.pst
immediate past
- link
Tsou “attributive particle”
- m
masculine
- n
noun
- o
direct object
- pl
plural
- pres
present tense
- pret
preterite
- ptcpl
participle
- Rel
relative clause
- rem.pst
remote past
- sg
singular
- tns
tense
- tod.pst
today past
- uf
undergoer focus (for Tsou)
- v
verb
- x
oblique phrase
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Appendix: Equations
Equation 1: Student’s T test for comparing two proportions
The test statistic T for comparing whether two propensities are equal is as follows:
where p1 and p2 are the propensity values, and n1 and n2 are the total numbers of cases in p1 and p2 respectively. And: If p1=X/n1, and p2=Y/n2, then p=(X+Y) / (n1+n2). T is theoretically distributed as a Student’s t-distribution with n1+n2–2 degrees of freedom, when p1 and p2 are equal. In finding P-values based on T, I use a 1-tailed test. This is because in every instance the directionality of the expected difference is known.
Equation 2: Student’s T test for comparing a proportion against a constant value
The standardized test statistic T for a propensity value p compared against the baseline 0.24, as a constant value, is as follows:
where p is the propensity value and n is the number of cases. T is theoretically distributed as a Student’s t-distribution with n – 1 degrees of freedom, when p is equal to 0.24.
All calculations of P-values in this paper were carried out using R (R Development Core Team 2009).
©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Differential object marking in Standard Turkish and Caucasian Urum
- Causative constructions in Ainu: A typological perspective with remarks on the diachrony
- Towards a semantic map for intensifying particles: Evidence from Avar
- The oblique phrase and the order of the relative construction
- Agent prominence in symmetrical voice languages
- Review article
- Typology of body part appellations
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Differential object marking in Standard Turkish and Caucasian Urum
- Causative constructions in Ainu: A typological perspective with remarks on the diachrony
- Towards a semantic map for intensifying particles: Evidence from Avar
- The oblique phrase and the order of the relative construction
- Agent prominence in symmetrical voice languages
- Review article
- Typology of body part appellations