I am directing a thesis on punctuation in Spanish (reputedly,
and pretty much in fact, a 'free word order' language), in which the
student is trying to postulate punctuation rules based on the 'canonical
order' of Spanish constituents and its variations.
I have the very firm idea that canonical order is that in part
because it is the most frequent order in the language. However, I have
done no research on this supposed fact, and cannot think of any
offhand. Does anyone know of any work on the relative frequency of
sentences in canonical order and those showing variation in that
order? Of course, this would be especially useful in a 'free word
order' language like Spanish, but anything would be welcome. Likewise,
she would be interested in the relative frequency of the different
orders of the basic elements, if anyone knows of any work on that (one
type of sentence and its variants that she is working with is SUBJECT -
VERB - OBJECT - CIRCUMSTANTIAL_COMPLEMENT -- the last is normally a
prepositional phrase or adverbial phrase; this would produce in
principle 24 different orders in this case, *all* of which are
attested and attestable in Spanish, though presumably with rather
different relative frequencies of use).
She would also like to know who was the first person to coin the
term 'canonical order', or to whom it is attributed. (Or is it just an
idea that 'grew'? This last seems to me to be unlikely, but if anyone
has any really old references to the notion, I guess I might have to
accept it)
Thanks.
Jim
PS: My recollections of high school Latin are that it may be the case
that in that language the canonical order is *not* necessarily the most
common one, at least in the literary language. Certainly, mutations of
the C.O. are more common in Latin than in its daughter language Spanish,
though they are equally grammatical in both.
Blues great and cognitive scientist Robert Johnson on the mind/brain:
"If ever I gotta bust your brains out, baby,
Hoooo, It'll make you lose your mind."
James L. Fidelholtz e-mail: jfidel@siu.buap.mx
Posgrado en Ciencias del Lenguaje tel.: +(52-2)229-5500 x5705
Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades fax: +(01-2) 229-5681
Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, MÉXICO
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