Tracing the roots of syntax with Bayesian phylogenetics.

ABSTRACT: The ordering of subject, verb, and object is one of the fundamental components of the syntax of natural languages. The distribution of basic word orders across the world's languages is highly nonuniform, with the majority of languages being either subject-object-verb (SOV) or subject-verb-object (SVO). Explaining this fact using psychological accounts of language acquisition or processing requires understanding how the present distribution has resulted from ancestral distributions and the rates of change between orders. We show that Bayesian phylogenetics can provide quantitative answers to three important questions: how word orders are likely to change over time, which word orders were dominant historically, and whether strong inferences about the origins of syntax can be drawn from moder

SUBMITTER: Maurits L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4169967 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature