Table 1 Representation of diachronic scenarios underlying the interaction between case and word order.
From: The evolutionary dynamics of how languages signal who does what to whom
Diachronic scenario | Description | Hypothesis |
|---|---|---|
verb-final WO → case | verb-final word order causes case | processing hypothesis, noisy channel hypothesis, and word order universal |
flexible WO → case | flexible word order causes case | trade-off hypothesis, corpus studies results |
absent case → absent flexible WO | absent case causes absent flexible word order (i.e. leads to rigid word order) | a theory of licensing and structural case, corpus studies results |
case → flexible WO | case causes flexible word order | trade-off hypothesis vs a theory of licensing and structural case and corpus studies results |
