In many flexible word order languages, sentences with a transitive verb (V) in which the subject (S) precedes the object (O) (SO word order = SOV, SVO, VSO) are reported to be “preferred” over those in which the opposite occurs (OS word order= OSV, OVS, VOS). For example, SO sentences are easier to process and are produced more frequently than OS sentences in Finnish, Japanese, Sinhalese, and others. This empirical evidence of the preference for SO word order, however, is not conclusive, because it comes exclusively from SO languages (i.e., languages in which SO is the syntactically simplest word order). It is therefore necessary to study OS languages (i.e., languages in which OS is the syntactically simplest word order) to investigate whether the same preference holds. This book reports on several experiments we have conducted, to this end, on Kaqchikel (Mayan, Guatemala) and Seediq (Austronesian, Taiwan), whose syntactically basic word order is VOS.

Chapter 3 reports behavioral experiments with a sentence plausibility judgment task in Kaqchikel to test predictions by the Individual Grammar View and the Universal Cognition View. In this task, Kaqchikel sentences in one of the three commonly used orders (VOS, SVO, and VOS) were presented in a random order to participants through headsets. The participants were asked to judge whether each sentence was semantically plausible and to push a YES button for correct sentences or a NO button for incorrect sentences as quickly and accurately as possible. The time from the beginning of each stimulus sentence until a button was pressed was measured as the reaction time. Semantically natural sentences were processed faster in the VOS order than in the SVO or VSO orders, which suggests that VOS is easier to process than SVO or VSO. These results are compatible with the prediction of the IGV, but not with the prediction of the UCV, showing that the SO preference in sentence comprehension is not fully grounded in the universal properties of human cognition; rather, processing preference may be language-specific to some extent, reflecting syntactic differences in individual languages.

This chapter introduces the book and its viewpoint that to understand language, we must adopt the same methodology successfully applied to other faculties of the human mind. To do so, we must recognize how minoritized languages – languages spoken by smaller populations, or languages that are not even official national languages – nonetheless have transformative effects on our understanding of the human language faculty.

In this chapter, we see how our understanding of verbal argument structure (the relation of multiple objects to the verb) is in fact determined in large part by event structure: how non-core individuals may be related (benefactively, malefactively) to core verbal events. The empirical findings from Bantu languages have been so transformative for linguistic theory that they allow for unexpected consequences in languages traditionally thought to be ‘nonconfigurational’, such as Warlpiri.

In this chapter, two languages spoken far apart from one another – Basque and Ch’ol – jointly show that once one considers sentences expressed in the progressive aspect, the entire theory of ergative case as lexically determined begins to unravel. In particular, verbs that are not supposed to be lexically assign ergative end up with ergative-marked subjects (and vice versa) as a result of the larger clausal structure. Ergative case cannot solely be chalked up to a semantic encoding of agentivity or volitionality of the predicates involved. It is the details of the structure wrought around such predicates that will predestine their arguments to be ergative or not.

This chapter summarizes the book overall, as well as mentioning case studies that were not covered in previous chapters. It concludes by reinforcing the importance of native speaker linguists and inclusiveness in the language sciences.

In this chapter, the contributions of teams working together on South Slavic and Southern Bantu languages, many of which began specifically as new research partnerships forged after the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia and the end of apartheid, provide compelling evidence that syntactic processes must include reference to linear order. Syntax may not be just a spinning Calderian mobile: Agreement in gender for cases of conjoined NP subjects (and possibly objects) refers to the NP linearly closest to the verb.

This chapter examines number-marking in suppletive verbs in Hiaki, with pluractionality in Chechen, and without an overt mass/count distinction in Dëne Suliné. The grammatical encoding of number is one of the most varied areas of all cross-linguistic variation, and our syntax–semantics models cannot restrict themselves to limited samples of a handful of nonminoritized languages if our aim is to develop nonbrittle theories and truly challenge the view that English is as ‘equally’ representative of the human language faculty as any other language we choose to start from.

This chapter looks at sociolinguistic variation (resulting from sociohistorical factors that differentiate people into groups) and how it interfaces with phonological differences. The specific phonological difference under study is the use of the two hands versus the use of only one as an aspect of sublexical structure (i.e., as a phonological feature) in individual signs, and their overall patterning throughout the lexicon and morphophonology. We examine how Black ASL demonstrates the distribution of allophony in two-handed vs. one-handed lexical variants of signs.

In this chapter, the contributions of the minoritized languages Zazaki and Uyghur shore up a theoretical battle for philosophical ‘monsters’, specifically introducing radical revisions to semantic models of reported speech and attitude reports. In particular, these languages exhibit the phenomenon of indexical shift, whereby elements such as first-person pronouns in indirect quotations can refer to the matrix subject (and not the speaker themself), although with highly intricate constraints on when, some language-specific and some apparently universal.