Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-j7cmm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-09T04:15:47.430Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A structural principle of language and its implications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

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

Abstract

Sentence qualifier markers, like those indicating interrogation and negation, are placed before verbs in consistent VO languages, after verbs in consistent OV languages. This placement principle permits us to identify other sentence qualifiers, like potential, desiderative, and reflexive. It also provides means for distinguishing qualifier markers from congruence as well as deixis markers. Moreover, it has morphological and phonological implications, leading to so-called agglutinative structure. Besides contributing to our understanding of linguistic structure, this principle enables us to clarify some problems in the historical development of languages.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 1973 , pp. 47 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © Linguistic Society of America 1973

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

Bach, Emmon. 1970. Is Amharic an SOV language? Journal of Ethiopian Studies 8.9–20.Google Scholar
Bach, Emmon. 1971. Questions. Linguistic Inquiry 2.153–166.Google Scholar
Bills, Garland D., Bernardo Vallejo, C.; and Troike, Rudolph C. 1969. An introduction to spoken Bolivian Quechua. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Bright, William. 1966. Dravidian metaphony. Lg. 42.311–322.Google Scholar
Brugmann, Karl. 1911. Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen, 2: Lehre von den Wortformen und ihrem Gebrauch, 2. Teil. Strassburg: Trübner.Google Scholar
Calbert, Joseph P. 1971. Modality and case grammar. Working Papers in Linguistics, Ohio State University, 10.85–132.Google Scholar
Delbrück, B. 1878. Die altindische Wortfolge ans dem Çatapathabrāhmaṇa dargestellt. (Syntaktische Forschungen, by B. Delbrück and E. Windisch, 3.) Halle.Google Scholar
Delbrück, B. 1888. Altindische Syntax. Halle.Google Scholar
Delbrück, B. 1893, 1897, 1900. Vergleichende Syntax der indogermanischen Sprachen, I—III. (Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen, by Brugmann, Karl and Delbrück, Berthold, 3–5.) Strassburg: Trübner.Google Scholar
Gallagher, Mary. 1970. Adverbs of time and tense. Papers from the 6th Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 220–226.Google Scholar
Gamkrelidze, Th. V., and Machavariani, G. I. 1965. The system of sonants and ablaut in Kartvelian languages. Tbilisi.Google Scholar
Geis, Jonnie. 1970. Some aspects of verb phrase adverbials in English. Urbana: University of Illinois dissertation.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963. Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. Universals of language, ed. by Greenberg, J. H., 73–113. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (Second ed., 1966.).Google Scholar
Hermann, E. 1895. Gab es im Indogermanischen Nebensätze? Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Sprachforschung 33.481–534.Google Scholar
Hope, E. R. 1972. The deep syntax of Lisu sentences. Canberra: ANU dissertation.Google Scholar
Izui, H. 1970. Gengo no sekai (The world of language). Tokyo.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1924. The philosophy of language. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul. 1968. Tense and mood in Indo-European syntax. Foundations of Language 4.30–57.Google Scholar
Klima, Edward S. 1964. Negation in English. The structure of language, ed. by Fodor, J. A. and Katz, J. J., 246–323. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Kuipers, Aert. 1967. The Squamish language. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehmann, W. P. 1952. Proto-Indo-European phonology. Austin: University of Texas Press and Linguistic Society of America.Google Scholar
Lehmann, W. P. 1968. Review of Gamkrelidze & Machavariani 1965. Lg. 44.404–407.Google Scholar
Lehmann, W. P. 1969. Proto-Indo-European compounds in relation to other Proto-Indo-European syntactic patterns. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 12.1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehmann, W. P. 1970. The Nordic languages: lasting linguistic contributions of the past. The Nordic languages and modern linguistics, ed. by Benediktsson, H., 286–305. Reykjavik.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, K. G., 19–24. Bonn: Dümmler.Google Scholar
Lehmann, W. P. 1972a. Descriptive linguistics: an introduction. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Lehmann, W. P. 1972b. On converging theories in linguistics. Lg. 48.266–275.Google Scholar
Lehmann, W. P. 1972c. Contemporary linguistics and Indo-European studies. PMLA 87.976–993.Google Scholar
Lehmann, W. P. 1972d. Comparative constructions in Germanic of the OV type. To appear in Studies for Einar Haugen. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Meillet, Antoine. 1925. La méthode comparative en linguistique historique. Oslo. [English translation, The comparative method in historical linguistics. Paris: Champion, 1967.].Google Scholar
Nida, Eugene A. 1949. Morphology. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Pinnow, Hans-Jürgen. 1960. Über den Ursprung der voneinander abweichenden Struktur der Munda- und Khmer-Nicobar-Sprachen. Indo-Iranian Journal 4.81–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pokorny, Julius. 1926-1929. Das Nicht-indogermanische Substrat im Irischen. Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 16.95–144, 231-66, 363-94, 17.373-88, 18.233–48.Google Scholar
Skalička, Vladimír. 1948. Sur le rôle de la flexion interne dans la langue. Linguistica Slovaca 4-6.13-22.Google Scholar
Southard, O. Bruce. 1971. Tagalog, English and topicalization. Working Papers in Linguistics, Ohio State University, 10. 21–20.Google Scholar
Speyer, J. S. 1886. Sanskrit syntax. Leiden: Brill. (Reprinted, Kyoto: Rinsen-Shoten Bookstore, 1968.).Google Scholar
Steffenson, Margaret. 1971. A deverbal analysis of adverbials in Hindi. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, University of Illinois, 1:2.136-79.Google Scholar
Trubetzkoy, N. S. 1969. Principles of phonology. Translated by Baltaxe, Christiane A. M. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Yamagiwa, Joseph K. 1942. Modern conversational Japanese. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar