Hostname: page-component-6898cfcb55-zsp5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-12T01:33:06.873Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Converging Theories in Linguistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

W. P. Lehmann
W. P. Lehmann*
Affiliation:
University of Texas
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Process models of language, and generative grammars, receive support from typological theory. Typological study has found that some syntactic constructions can be correlated with characteristic sentence patterns. Thus consistent OV languages have relative clauses, possessives, and adjectives preceding nouns; consistent VO languages show the converse order. The parallelism between the three constructions can be accounted for in process models, and related to the position of the object with regard to the verb in both OV and VO languages. The central importance of the verb in language as indicated in these and other constructions is pointed up by recent neurological investigations supporting descriptive and generative theory which proposes that verbs have the primary role in sentences. These observations illuminate syntactic patterns in New High German, in Latin and the Romance languages; they also indicate that a framework is now available for historical and descriptive syntactic study.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , June 1972, pp. 266 - 275
Copyright
Linguistic Society of America 1972

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ananthanarayana, H. S. 1970. The kāraka theory and case grammar. Indian Linguistics 31.14–27.Google Scholar
Gazzaniga, Michael S. 1970. The bisected brain. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.Google Scholar
Geschwind, Norman. 1970. The organization of language and the brain. Science 170. 940–944.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hirt, Hermann. 1934–37. Indogermanische Grammatik VI–VII: Syntax. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
Hockett, C. F. 1954. Two models of grammatical description. Word 10.210–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehmann, W. P. 1958. On earlier stages of the Indo-European nominal inflection. Lg. 34.179–202.Google Scholar
Lehmann, W. P. 1971. On the rise of SOV patterns in New High German. Grammatik, Kybernetik, Kommunikation: Festschrift für Alfred Hoppe, ed. by Schweisthal, Klaus Günther, 19–24. Bonn: Dümmler.Google Scholar
Leumann, M., Hofmann, J. B.; and Szantyr, Anton. 1965. Lateinische Grammatik II: Syntax und Stilistik. München: C. H. Beck.Google Scholar
Lorenzen, Paul. 1969. Normative logic and ethics. (Hochschultaschenbücher, 236.) Mannheim/Zürich: Bibliographisches Institut.Google Scholar
Matthews, P. H. 1970. Recent developments in morphology. New horizons in linguistics, ed. by Lyons, John, 95–114. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Pflueger, Solveig M. V. 1971. Transitivity and passivization of English verbs. In progress, University of Texas, Austin.Google Scholar
Semmes, Josephine. 1971. Review of The bisected brain, by Michael S. Gazzaniga. Science 171.885–886.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wynn, Lucy Shombert. 1970. A linguistic study of metaphor. Austin: University of Texas doctoral dissertation.Google Scholar