An Explanation of Word Order Change SVO-SOV英语教案.pdf

CHARLES N. LI AND SANDRA A. THOMPSON AN EXPLANATION OF WORD ORDER CHANGE SYO-+SOV O. INTRODUCTION I If a language develops freely without any external influence, what are the possible directions in which its word order can change? Although this im- , .Ill question remains to become the subject of intensive investigations, studies have been attempted recently (e.g. Lehmann (1973), Venne- (1973)). In this paper we will (a) present a number of empirical facts the historical development of Chinese syntax to demonstrate that the of word order change in Mandarin Chinese has been SVO -+ SOY show that the essential pathway of word order changes is the collapsing complex sentences into simple sentences with a new word order, rather than the direct reorganization of sentential elements within the set of simple sentences, and (c) conclude that the theoretical directions and pathways or •word order changes are flexible and numerous and remain to be discovered ·through careful empirical investigations. • •• .. I. SVO-+sov IN MANDARIN CHINESE change from SVO to SOY in Chinese has been a slow process that began than two millennia ago. We will summarize our findings demonstrating ~uch a change in the following: ..- , .i \ . ,. \ , Archaic Chinese Modern Ch