The SOV Mystery and Language Evolution

doi:10.1017/9781009221900.004

4 - The SOV Mystery and Language Evolution

from Part I - The Evolution of Syntax

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 February 2025

Thomas Givón

Edited by

Dany Adone and

Astrid Gabel

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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 evolution SOV cultural-communicative explanation word order drift diachrony ontogeny and evolution

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Evolution, Acquisition and Development of Syntax
Insights from Creole Languages and Beyond
, pp. 49 - 73

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009221900.004 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

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