VSO and Master Yoda
Right, I'll simply assume that you are all Star Wars fans and know Master Yoda.
Ever notice something weird about the way he talks? The creaky voice aside I mean. Considering that he is speaking English (in a galaxy far far away ... how weird is that??) his word order is all up the spout. To put it in linguist-speak, he is using OSV word order. Which makes it sound so weird because English really is a SVO language.
OK, maybe I should elucidate on this S, V and O stuff first. All languages make utterances that contain information about who is doing what to whom, bluntly speaking. Nit-picking about Agent-Patient languages aside, the WHO bit is commonly called the subject (=S), the ACTION bit is the verb (=V) and the TO WHOM bit is the object (=O). Broadly speaking.
Take a simple English sentence: Jack is kicking Jill. Who's doing what to whom? Jack is the one who's doing the kicking, so he's the subject (= S). Kicking is the action in question, so that bit is the verb (= V). And Jill is getting muddy footprints on her new Chanel costume, so she is the object (= O) here. So, in this sentence the word order is SVO - subject first, then the verb and last the action. If you look at more English sentences, you'll see that that is the overall structure of an English sentence. Which brings us back to Master Yoda (we're not worthy, we're not worthy!). Consider his ominous revelation to Luke Skywalker: "Your father he is". Hm ... here we start with the object first, followed by the subject and then by the verb at the end. OSV. While not all his sentences follow this strict structure, a lot of them do and that is what makes him sound so odd.
Now, for a bit of linguistic trivia. We've determined that languages beg to differ as to their word order. So, how many different combinations of S, O and V does that give us? Yup, six: SVO, SOV, VSO, VOS, OSV and OVS. By far, the most common two are actually SVO & SOV which are used by roughly 75% of the world's languages, including English. Another 15% or so use VSO and the remaining three make up about 10% of the world's languages. Bet you're dying for some examples, so I'll try not to disappoint you.
SVO
English
Jack kicks Jill S V O
Vietnamese
Bích ăn cơm S V O Bích eat rice Bích eats rice
Haussa
bā yā
NEG S
not hecîn
V
eatnāmā
O
meathe doesn't eat meat
SOV
Chechen
as Gürzhiini motta büütsa S O V I Georgian language speak I speak Georgian
Tongan
kuo u sio he kulī PAST S V O I see the dog I have seen the dog
SVO
Japanese
Ryōko wa terebi o mimasu S TOPIC O DAT V Ryōko television watch Ryoko watches TV
VSO
Welsh
mae dwy ferch gyda fi V S O be two girl with I I have two daughters
Cebuano
adúna siyáy duhá ka anák V S O have she two COUNT child she has two children
Irish
phóg sé an madra V S O PAST-kiss he the dog he kissed the dog
VOS
Malagasy
manana akondra aho V O S have banana I I have a banana
Tzotzil
lá snákan ti vĩnike yu'un ti xpétule PAST V THEME AGENS S seat man Peter Peter seated the man
OSV
Apurinã
anana
O
pineapplenota
S
Iapa
V
fetchI fetch a pineapple
Amharic
shay
O
teayït'at'all
S-V
he-drinkinghe's drinking the tea
Yanomami
rorõ
O
cigaretteya kona
S INC
Itaarema
V
seeI see a cigarette
OVS
Hixkaryana
toto
O
the fishyonoye
V
atekana
S
the manthe man ate the fish
Xavante
ma
PASTwĩrĩ
O-Vni
Shim kill someone someone killed him
So what?
Wonderful, but where does that leave us? Well, from the above Irish example, some of you may have already guessed that Gaelic falls into the select category of VSO languages. And it's quite strict about that - which is lucky for us.
Practically speaking, this means that no matter what bits come in between, the verb comes before the subject, and the subject before the object. Let's look at a few examples:
bidh V |
mi S |
ag ithe ùbhlan O (technically a predicate) |
a-màireach, a bhalaich blabla |
chunnaic V |
mo mhàthair S |
cù O |
aig an doras O/Predicate |
bhiodh V |
m' athair S |
ag obair air càraichean O/Predicate |
nuair a bha mi òg blabla |
So, why did I say "quite strict"? Because there's a select group of particles that can come before the verb: interrogative particles, past tense markers, negative particles, and others. Here's a list of particles which can commonly come before the verb and a few examples:
Pre-verbial particle (sentence initial) |
Example |
---|---|
an? | an deach thu? |
nach? | nach deach thu? |
cha(n) | cha tuig thu |
có? | có tha seo? |
càit(e)? | càit a bheil thu? |
cuin(e)? | cuin a thig thu? |
carson? | carson a thig thu? |
ma | ma thig thu... |
nan | nan rachadh tu ann... |
Pre-verbial particle (phrase initial) |
Example |
---|---|
... far an... | an t-àite far an robh mi |
... nuair a... | bha mi 'nam chadal nuair a thàinig e |
... gun... | chuala mi gun robh thu ann |
... carson... | chuala mi carson a bha thu ann |
... a... | chunnaic mi an duine a bha ann |
... ma... | chì sinn thu ma thig thu |
... nan... | bhiodh tu gòradh nan digeadh tu ann |
So your average sentence will look like this:
Preverbial particle(s) | Verb | Subject | Predicate/Object |
---|---|---|---|
- | Tha | Calum | an-seo. |
A | bheil | Calum | an-seo? |
Nach | eil | Calum | an-seo? |
Chan | eil | Calum | an-seo. |
- | Bha | Calum | an-seo. |
An | robh | Calum | an-seo? |
Nach | robh | Calum | an-seo? |
Cha | robh | Calum | an-seo. |
- | Bhuail | do mhàthair | mi. |
An do | bhuail | do mhàthair | mi? |
Nach do | bhuail | do mhàthair | mi? |
Cha | bhuail | do mhàthair | mi. |
- | Chitheadh | tu | iad. |
Am | facadh | tu | iad? |
Nach | fhacadh | tu | iad? |
Chan | fhacadh | tu | iad. |
Càit an | robh | thu | nuair a thuit mi? |
For example:
am Pre-verbial particle |
bi V |
mi S |
ag ithe ùbhlan a-màireach, a bhalaich? Predicate (aka the rest) |
ø Pre-verbial particle |
chunnaic V |
mo mhàthair S |
cù aig an doras Predicate (aka the rest) |
dh' Pre-verbial particle |
fhàg V |
mo mhàthair S |
cù aig an doras Predicate (aka the rest) |
cha Pre-verbial particle |
bhiodh V |
m' athair S |
ag obair air càraichean nuair a bha mi òg Predicate (aka the rest) |
Chunnaic is in the list because there is one of those famous linguistic zeroes (= ø)in front of it. A linguistic zero is a marker for a something that used-to-be-there/would-occupy-this-position-if-it-were-marked. In Old Irish, the past tense was quite regularly marked by sticking a particle in front of the verb (don't ask, it was messy). Curiously, one dialect of Irish still preserves this paradigm and that dialect also has a largely synthetic verb structure, meaning it uses endings as opposed to individual words to designate the subject pronouns:
Munster Irish | Standard Irish | Scottish Gaelic |
---|---|---|
do dhúnas do dhúnais do dhún sé/sí do dhúnamair do dhúnabhair do dhúnadar |
dhún mé dhún tú dhún sé/sí dhún muid dhún sibh dhún siad |
dhùn mi dhùn thu dhùn e/i dhùn sinn dhùn sibh dhùn iad |
That's why chunnaic is in the list. In Irish, the do then got reduced to d' before vowels and f (e.g. d'ith mé) and in Scottish Gaelic it became dh' (e.g. dh'ith mi). Anyway, it doesn't really matter if you ignore this particular one.
It certainly gets more complicated than that. But for now, it will do nicely to remember that Gaelic is a VSO language. Watch this space as there is lots more on syntax to come, including a lovely tree diagram even though we're definitely not generativists.
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