Structure And Word Order

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Dr. Brian Nolan

Describing Grammar

Describing Grammar

INTRODUCTION:

Structure and word order has often been analysed through so many papers and studied by a numerous academics. They have developed various hypotheses in order to show how syntax works in languages and its importance for speakers to communicate properly. The reason why this has been done is because structure has been progressing with the passing of times, and word order has helped speaker to express themselves. Syntax, in general, permits to verbalize anything they want to say. If it is necessary, "this might mean altering the basic word order of a sentence, to emphasize or downplay a particular phrase, or to ask a question, or else grouping words together in different ways to modify the meaning."(Tallerman 19). This paper is going to make focus on how structure and the word order may differ or not between two of the most spoken languages in the world: English and Spanish. In order to see the differences, some of the points will be the advances made by them along history, giving concise notions about the changes they have suffered; the structures and uses where both of them are applied, regarding also their similar points; and also making reference to some specific features, among some others.

BACKGROUND:

WORD ORDER IN OLD ENGLISH:

From Old English (OE) to Modern English (MnE), the language and characteristics we use today, there have been so many changes, passing also through Middle English (ME). The biggest change happened between Old English and Middle English, from a period where the subject and the object depended on the endings of the words. In other words, "Old English used taxemes of selection (inflected forms) to distinguish between actor (subject) and goal (Object), and to indicate the direction of modification." (Fries 199). In the Middle English, the nouns lost this inflection and, as a consequence, the word order started to have more value. From now on, the grammatical information was not in the nouns, but in the order of the words. This fact made the syntax from Middle English be more fixed; the articles and auxiliary verbs, for example, occupied the position they do in Modern English. But, although this new syntax behaves more strictly, "The word order in Middle English is still relatively free, compared to Modern English." (Gelderen 126). After all this progress, it is time to mention the Modern English. The structure of the sentences in this period follows the SVO pattern, which is inherited namely from the Middle English. Now, the constituents order is much more fixed than before. This is because, as mentioned previously, the word order is SVO, or in some cases OSV; but none of the other options in word order are allowed.

WORD ORDER IN OLD SPANISH:

In the Spanish language, also named Old Castillian or Medieval Spanish, there has also been a progress through time. Old Spanish is derived from Latin, the same that all the Romance languages. Among those changes, there is one concerning word order. First of all, in Latin was used the SOV, whereas in Old Spanish it changed and started to use VSO, as Ioanna Sitaridou stated, "It is interesting to observe

that it does not show V2 but, instead, an overwhelming majority of VSO" (Sitaridou 162); and, finally in Modern Spanish, it became SVO. In this case, the word order changed, but Old English also maintained some features, for example, the position of the Indirect Object. Scholars have found texts with both possibilities of position, before and after the verb; but, the most usual position is after the verb, the same way that the direct object, as England specifies, "The order V-Io is, then, the norm, and in much the same way as the direct object" (England 385). Perhaps it is thanks to all those changes why Modern Spanish allows nearly all the possible word orders of Subject, Verb and Object. Moreover, it may also be due to the influence it has received from other languages and dialects. The Spanish language has become more flexible regarding to its constituents order.

STRUCTURE OF WORD ORDER

Word order is only a part of the world of syntax, thus, first of all, we need to understand what syntax is. Syntax is defined as the processes and rules that a language needs to stablish structure in sentences, or as Tallerman (2011:1) describes it, syntax is "‘sentence construction’: how words group together to make phrases and sentences." And as a part of syntax, word order arranges single words to form clauses and phrases.

It is important to maintain this order, because only by altering it, the meaning of a whole sentence can change. In English, "the reverse order signifies not only the basic modification relationship, but also the modification of a noun with particular lexical meaning" (Asian Social Science p.257). For example, in English, this arrangement of words may adopt a linear order, and in this case, if we change it, the clause may alter its meaning:

a. His grandfather gave Nick a candy.

b. Nick gave his grandfather a candy.

c. A candy gave Nick his grandfather.

In this example (1), we notice how the meaning of each sentence is altered. In (1a), his grandfather is the subject, the doer; Nick is indirect-object, the receiver; and a candy is the object, the element given. In (1b), the meaning changes, now it is Nick the subject and his grandfather the receiver. And, lastly, in (1c), the meaning does not make sense, it is impossible regarding to its meaning. This the linear order that English uses.

Each language may differ in terms of word order, there are many possibilities, but now, we are going to make focus on English. The word order of the English language is already determined, this means, its order does not allow movement in its constituents. For example, in the sentence (2), there are only three constituents, subject, verb and object; Karen, the person who loves; love, the action; and Spain, the loved place.

(2) a. Karen loves Spain (SVO)

b. *Spain loves Karen (OVS)

c. *Karen Spain loves (SOV)

d. Spain Karen loves (OSV)

e. *Loves Spain Karen (VOS)

f. *Loves Karen Spain (VSO)

Those are all the possible pattern in the word order of sentences. English only admits the (2a) and (2d), the last one only in some particular meanings. The rest of them are impossible in English, but may be followed by some other languages. In this example, the (2d) is used in English to focus on the direct object, and it is called object-fronting; this "Object‐fronting is, in fact, quite rare in English" (Tallerman 20). It is famous the sentences that belong to Yoda in 'Star Wars'. This was made for the film, and his speech is full of object-fronting as in this example:

(3) Rootleaf, I cook.

(From English VP fronting and the

syntax of Yoda, George Walkden. LinguistMix, 2012)

This is known as a marked construction, which means it is unusual, while the (2a) is marked. As well as the example (3), where the object can be moved to the left, it can also be moved to the right in some occasions. For instance, if the phrase is too long, the speaker can modify it by changing its normal position:

(4) The banker denied to open without the man's ID [THE ACCOUNT WHERE HE WANTED TO DEPOSIT ALL THE MONEY FROM HIS FATHER'S BEQUEST].

Its normal position should be after the verb phrase 'denied to open', but, as it is too long, it can be placed at the end.

Another example where English fixed word order SVO may be modified is in imperative sentences, where the clause have not expressed subject, (S)VO. For instance, in (5), where the subject is omitted:

(5) (You) Give me the book now.

Other variations can occur in English if we regard questions.

In the case of yes/no question, there may or may not be included some extra verbs, in order to make the question properly, such as have, be, could, should, among others.

(6)a. Are you reading this newspaper?

b. You are reading this newspaper.

In (6a), the order would be VSVO, instead of the normal declarative pattern, SVO, as is exemplified in (6b). The phrase 'are reading' is now separated by the Subject. Or maybe, for those verbs which need help to make questions, they may have an auxiliary verb, such as 'do'; as we see in (7):

(7)a. Do you need some help?

b. You need some help.

Once again, the subject is place between both verbs. Also, in wh- questions, the normal order is altered. The phrase represented by the wh-question is moved rightward. In (8b), what represents the object; changing the order to OVSV. And, similarly, in (8c), ’who’ represents the subject; being the order SVO.

(8)a. Mike is sending an email to his teacher.

b. What is Mike sending to his teacher?

c. Who is sending an email to the teacher?

Certain words that also change the word order in English are the adverbials (A). This type of words can be placed in the initial or final position, as it is reflected in the example if we use the adverbial 'normally':

(9)a. She normally wears red boots (SAVO)

b. Normally she wears red boots (ASVO)

She wears red boots normally (SVOA)

The meaning of this sentence does not change, but the disposition of the order is altered, placing the adverbial amongst its constituents.

Through those examples we have analysed that, although English has a fixed position in the word order, sometimes it can be modified in order to give sense and make it easier to understand. But, despite the strict position, it enables some independence, "the more peripheral an element is, the more freedom of position it has. After V, S is the least mobile element, followed by O and C" (Quirk 51). Later on, we will analyse the Spanish language.

STRUCTURE OF WORD ORDER IN SPANISH:

The Spanish language shares many similarities with the Indo-European family and also with the Romance family. It is established as first official language in many countries, for example, in the Southwestern of United States, in South America, and obviously Spain. But, it may also be spoken some dialects as well as Spanish. This phenomenon happens in the North of Spain, where other languages such as Catalan, Basque or Galician are found. And also, depending on where you hear the spoken Spanish, it may have serious variations or not, regarding to the standard Spanish. Amongst some of them are "the head-initial constituents order, pronominal clitics, negative concord, rich agreement morphology and null subject phenomena" (Zagona 7). Those are only some of the features of Spanish, but this paper is going to analyse only a number of them.

The truth is that in Spanish, the word order is really flexible; the clauses can be organised in many different ways, and even more in colloquial conversations. As it can be seen in the example (10), the organisations of it constituents can vary in different ways:

(10)a. La niña compró el caramelo

b. *La niña el caramelo compró

c. El caramelo compró la niña

d. El caramelo la niña compró

e. Compró el caramelo la niña

f. Compró la niña el caramelo

(11)a. The girl bought the sweet

b. *The girl the sweet bought

c. *The sweet bought the girl

d. The sweet the girl bought

e. *Bought the sweet the girl

f. *Bought the girl the sweet

If we compare it with English, there are some of the possible patterns in Spanish that are impossible in English. There is only one that can not be realised by Spanish, the (10b), which follows the model SOV. In other words, "Spanish has all types of word order except SOV (i.e. SOV, VOS, OSV, VSO and OVS)" (Lahause 387). Another possibility is the omission of the Object, and also of the Subject. First of all, in the case of the object, it can also be elliptical:

(12)a. Ella llamó.

She called back.

b. Llamó ella.

Called back she.

"She called back."

In this example (12a), the order would be SV, but also it is grammatical the second one, (12b) with VS. And also we can omit the subject.

The situation of the subject in Spanish is pretty controversial. Spanish speakers usually do not use the subject, and this is because it is presupposed by the verb. Within the verb it is indicated the number and person, so, the only thing that is unknown is the concrete person. For example, in a clause where the subject has been referred once, the speaker does not need to say it again. It is the case of the example (13):

(13)a. Vi a Marta y (ella) me dijo que se ha casado, y que (ella) ahora tenía tres hijos.

b. I saw Marta, and she told me she was married, and that now she has three kids.

In (13a), only the first subject needs to be said, but not the other one, whereas in (13b), all the subjects must be said. Thus, in (13a) the second and third sentences, have omitted subject, being now VO.

Also, the order of the subject may be before or after the verbe, it means, be VOS or SVO. But, the order VSO is also possible, although "V-S-O sequences in finite declaratives may be less natural that S-V-O and V-O-S orders. The naturalness of V-S-O sentences may vary from speaker to speaker" (Zagona 27). But, actually, all the sentences depend on the intention of the speaker. Following both clauses the same pattern, VSO, one of them may sound more natural than the other. It is better exemplified in the following examples:

(14)a. Mojó él su ropa.

Wet he his clothes.

"He wet his clothes".

b. Cantó la chica canciones clásicas.

Sang she songs classic.

"She sang classic songs".

In the case on imperatives sentences, change in the word order is also significant. Just like English, the subject is omitted, hence, the clause should be (S)VO; as shown in the example (15a):

(15)a. Ábrelo!

Open it!

b. No lo abras!

No it open

"Don't open it!"

As said before, in most of the clauses in Spanish, the subject is omitted because of the agreement with the verb. If we take (15a) into consideration, its structure, VO, is the same that in English; but, if we look at (15b), there is a considerable change. In Spanish, when negative imperative is formed, the order of V and O changes, it becomes OV, also placing the negative particle 'NO' in the beginning. But in English, the order does not change, it only places the negation in the beginning, keeping the order (neg)+VO.

As we have said before, both of them follow the same pattern, but the first one, (14a), sounds well; and on the contrary, it is strange to hear the (14b) with this order.

In the interrogative sentences, the word order also suffered some changes. Those clauses can also be divided into yes/no questions and wh-questions. First of all, in the yes/no questions, they "may be marked only by intonation, or by intonation and constituent order" (Zagona 50). As we have already said above, English follows the VSVO pattern, while in Spanish is more flexible.

(16)a. Él es tu mejor amigo.

He is your best friend.

b. ¿Él es tu mejor amigo?

He is your best friend?

"Is he your best friend?"

c. ¿Es él tu mejor amigo?

Is he your best friend?

In the above example, the clause (16a) is declarative, SVO. The (16b) and (16c) are both interrogatives, but they do not follow the same pattern. (16b), being interrogative, has the same model than the declarative, and (16c) changes to VSO, similarly to some of the simple questions in English. The difference between the (16a) and (16b) is only the intonation, whereas the distinction between (16b) and (16c), is the word order.

Amongst the types of wh-question, the focus here is made on two of them. First, simple interrogative sentences place their subject in a post-verbal position, after the interrogative particle.

(17)a. ¿Qué puso Marta en la mesa?

What set Marta in the table?

"What did Marta set on the table?"

In this instance, the pattern is OVS, whereas in English is OVSV. The question word is placed first, followed by the verb, and finally, the subject. In Spanish, the question word is always placed in the beginning, while in English may change. In the following case, the interrogative question is formed by two constituents:

(18)a. ¿Con quién fue Rosa?

With who went Rosa?

"Who did Rosa go with?"

In (18a), the whole interrogative particle in Spanish is placed first, the preposition and the particle are always together, "preposition stranding is never possible" (Zagona 52). This situation happen also with some other cases, "a quién, para qué, a dónde, de quién, desde cuándo". Whereas in English is divided; the wh- word in the beginning, and the preposition is placed in the end. This is the normal place of prepositions in questions, although it may sometimes be placed at the end; for instance, in formal language.

There is another controversial situation, the adverbials. Similarly to English, in Spanish they can also be placed in many positions within the clause: before the subject, pre-verbal or post-verbal, and also at the end of the clause. Zagona (163) proposes a diagram to better understand this situation:

(19) x-Subj-x-V-x-Obj-x

(From The Syntax of Spanish, Karen Zagona.

University Press, Cambridge: 2002)

First of all, we can place the adverbials in different positions depending also on the constituents which they modify to.

(20)a. Ayer me contó Laura un chiste muy divertido. (AVSO)

Yesterday me told Laura a joke really funny.

"Yesterday Laura told me a really funny joke.

(21)a. Sara siempre recorre el mismo camino. (SAVO)

Sara always goes over the same way.

(22)a. Jose conoció allí a su amor verdadero. (SVAO)

Jose met there his true love.

(23)a. Mi hermana lava los platos todos los días. (SVOA)

My sister wash the dishes everyday.

All the examples above have adverbials within its constituents, each one in a different positions, but all of them are possible. Although, it may have some exceptions.

In this section, features of Spanish structure and word order were presented. With those examples, we have clarified some of the options of word order that Spanish language may adopt; and the comparison with English. As said before, Spanish is a flexible language, and although it may give freedom to its constituents, in most cases it follows rules and conventions. Hence, we can affirm that Spanish is more flexible in its structure and word order than English.

CASE, AGREEMENT AND CORCONDACE:

Central to the entire discipline of grammar and word order is the concept of case and agreement, thus, it is necessary to explain and analyse it in both languages, English and Spanish. Tallerman suggests a definition for case, explaining it as "a grammatical property that occurs in many languages, but by no means all, and indicates the grammatical function of an NP in a phrase or sentence." (Tallerman 52). Apart from the noun phrase, it also indicates the function in pronouns. In English, there are only two cases, known as 'common case', that actually is the absence of genitive; and 'genitive case', which indicates possession. Moreover, the personal pronouns in English 'I, he, she, we, they and also who' can be identified with subjective and objective case. To have a clearer idea, Quirk includes in its book the "Personal pronouns with subjective, objective, and genitive case forms", here exhibited:

SUBJECTIVE

I

we

you

he

she

it

they

who

OBJECTIVE

me

us

him

her

them

who(m)

GENITIVE

determinative

independent

my

mine

our

ours

your

yours

his

her

hers

its

their

theirs

whose

Some of the characteristics that can be appreciated in this table is that the pronouns 'you' and 'it' share the same form for subjective and objective case, the same way that the pronoun 'her' is used for objective case and for genitive determinative; additionally, we can also distinguish two different forms, in five of those pronouns, used to denote the genitive case, one for the determinative and another one for the independent.

Regarding to the objective and subjective cases, the difference between their uses "is made on the basis of a pronoun's function in the clause" (quirk 336). We can deduce that the objective pronouns are identified with the function of direct and indirect object; and, the same way, subjective pronouns are identified with the subject. For example, in the clause (24) and (25), are shown some illustrations of those pronouns:

(24)A: Whose is this money?

B: It is mine.

(25)A: Who is your sister?

B: My sister is her.

In the previous examples, all the pronouns are written in italics. In the example (24), 'whose' indicates possession, as well as 'mine'; whereas 'it' shows the subjective case. In (25), the pronouns 'who', 'my' and 'her' denote subject, determinative possession and object; and they could not be any other, cause in that case, the clause would not be correct.

On the other hand, there is the genitive case; it is used to indicate possession. Actually, it "is not really a case distinction, although it is a relic of a former case system comparable to that of Latin" (Quirk 318), similarly to Spanish. This genitive case is sometimes shown by adding 's at the end of the word, hence, it may bring problems with the plural. For instance, in (26), is clearly shown this problem:

(26)a. Cousin (sg, common)

b. cousin's (sg, gen.)

c. cousins (pl, common)

d. cousins' (pl, gen.)

In the previous instance, (26) are shown all the possibilities of the genitive case can adopt. And, this does not show any problem in writing, but in speaking, because the (26a), (26b) and (26c) are pronounced in the same way. So, there is no way to distinguish it but with the context. In the case of the plural form, the genitive only adds an apostrophe, "this plural genitive may be called the ZERO GENITIVE" (Quirk 319).

In Spanish this situation is different because it has some more cases than English. They are known as: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. The nominative case denotes the subject; the accusative shows the direct object; the dative, the indirect object; and lastly, the genitive indicates possession. In similarity to English language, they also affect to pronouns. This is clearly shown in the next table:

NOMINATIVE

(subject)

yo

tú

él (m.)

ella (f.)

nosotros

vosotros

ellos

ACCUSATIVE

(direct object)

me

te

lo

la

nos

os

los

las

DATIVE

(indirect object)

me

te

le

(se)

nos

os

les

(se)

GENITIVE

(possession)

mi

mío

tu

tuyo

su (m.f.)

suyo (m.f.)

nuestro

vuestro

su

suyo

For instance, the sentence (27) is composed by some of the cases:

(27)Mi hermano le compró un regalo a María.

My brother bought a present for María.

Here, 'mi hermano', which is in nominative case, is the subject; 'un regalo' functions as a direct object, so it has the accusative case; 'a María' is the indirect object, and goes in accusative; and finally, the genitive case is shown in 'mi' from the phrase 'mi hermano', that indicates possession, the 'hermano' belongs to the speaker. In this clause (27), there is another main pronoun: 'le'; It also indicates the indirect object.

(27)a. Mi hermano le (Dat.) compró un regalo.

My brother her bought a present

"My brother bought her a present"

b. Mi hermano lo (Acc.) compró a María.

My brother it bought for María

"My brother bought it for María"

c. Mi hermano se lo compró.

My brother for her it bought.

"My brother bought it for her"

In (27a), the indirect object 'a María' has been substituted by the dative pronoun; in (27b), the direct object has been substituted by the accusative pronoun; and in (27c) both, the IO and DO have been substituted by their corresponding pronouns. In this last clause, as both objects have been replaced by the pronouns at the same time, the indirect object is expressed with 'se'.

With respect to agreement, in Spanish and English there are some similarities, but also some differences. The agreement is normally defined as the concordance between the verb and the rest of constituents in the sentence, such as number, person and/or gender; in other words, "This means that various properties of the noun phrase arguments are also marked on the verb, the most common properties being person and number, and then gender or noun class." (Tallerman 45). Thus, if we consider the agreement between subject and verb, in English this agreement in number is called ‘grammatical concord’:

(28) a. The boy has gone for a walk.

b. the boys have gone for a walk.

Despite the grammatical concord, there may be some troubles with two other principles. One of them is known as ‘notional concord’, that means the agreement in number but when the grammatical marker does not appear. For example, with collective nouns the verb is written in plural, although the noun is in singular, i.e., it does not show the plural mark ‘-s’.

(29)The public are really angry.

This noun ‘flock’ shows a plural notion, and although it does not show the plural mark, the verb is in plural, ‘are’. The other principle is the ‘principle of proximity’, that denotes the agreement of the verb with the noun nearest to it. So, for instance, with the noun ‘guest’ and the verb ‘sign, it would be:

(29) More than one guest has signed in the book.

In this case, the notion is plural, because it is ‘more than one’, but the verb is in singular due to its proximity to the noun ‘guest, which is shown in singular form’.

One of the similarities with Spanish is that the subject also agrees with the verb, but it does it with all the personal pronouns. Here is a list of the pronouns in Spanish, conjugated with the verb ‘cantar’, in English ‘to sing’:

SINGULAR

PLURAL

FIRST PERSON

Yo (I) canto

Nosotros (we) cantamos

SECOND PERSON

Tú (you) cantas

Vosotros (you)cantáis

THIRD PERSON

Él (he) canta

Ella (she) canta

Ellos/ ellas (they) cantan

It is evident that each one of them has a different termination, and this is one of the main reasons why the subject is usually omitted in Spanish, because the desinence of the verb agrees with the subject.

Sometimes, in Spanish, there are some verbs that are always conjugated with the third person. Those are the verbs which designate the weather, and also "constructions with non-referential subjects (corresponding to English it, there), also have invariant 3rd singular verb forms" (Zagona 31). This is the case in examples (30) and (31):

(30) Mañana va a llover.

Tomorrow goes to rain.

"Tomorrow it is going to rain"

(31) Parece que estamos perdidos.

Seems that are lost

"It seems that we are lost".

Both principal verbs are written in third person singular ‘va’ and ‘parece’. And, although none of them have the explicit subject, one as well as the other are conjugated with the same person, third person singular 'it'.

CONCLUSION

Through all this information and the examples, this paper has analysed the main syntax in English and Spanish. Amongst the similarities, English language and Spanish follow some patterns in terms of word order, and obviously, they provide rules in order to form clauses. In the interrogatives both omit the subject, and also need concordance within its constituents. But, on the other hand, there are also some differences. Spanish has a more flexible word order than English, and it is reflected as well in its structure. The phrases in Spanish may be placed in various positions, whereas in English, nearly always have a fixed position. This is one of the main difficulties for English speakers when they learn Spanish, the position of word order is pretty hard to understand. And this is an aspect noticed when someone analyse and make researches about it. Moreover, in this paper it is understood that languages need syntax to maintain some order, even just a little, they need the help of grammar and structure.