Typologie
Word Order and Focus Position in the World's Languages
Focus positions were collected for a list of 112 languages from distinct language families and were grouped by unmarked word order and language family. Results suggest a correlation between unmarked word order and focus position, SOV languages in our sample being more likely to encode
focus preverbally than SVO languages, while sentence initial focus position was found in about equal percentages in both groups. In all languages concerned, subject and non-subject focus were moved to the same position (if focus marking included movement at all), as opposed to other focus
marking strategies that often show asymetries between the two. Apart from unmarked word order, areal or genetical factors are likely to influence focus marking via movement.
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 November 2007
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