Re: R: Re: Greenberg's universals

On 14 Sept, I wrote:

>> Semitic, VSO? Examples, please?
>> The Hebrew that I am exposed to daily
>> seems pretty SVO to me!
On 14 Sept, Steg answered:

Biblical (and i think all pre-Modern) Hebrew was VSO:

Bibl. _vayomer Hashem "yehi or!"_
vs.
Mod. _Hashem amar "yehi or!!"_

("God said, "let there be light!")


Bibl. _vatehi ha'aretz safa ahhat udevarim ahhadim_
vs.
Mod. _ha'aretz hayta safa ahhat udevarim ahhadim_

("the land was one language and few words")


Mishnaic _amar r' aqiva, "..."_
vs.
Mod. _r' aqiva amar, "..."_

You're right, of course, Steg.
It was right before my eyes, had I only bothered
to look. Actually the VSO starts in the very first
verse of the Bible and goes on from there.
Thanx.


And on 14 Sept, Matt answered:


>You're right, of course.  Biblical Hebrew was VSO, as is (IIRC) Classical
>Arabic.  Most modern varieties of these languages have drifted towards SVO,
but
>otherwise preserve the core typological properties of VSO languages.  (VSO
>order has been preserved in the Berber languages, which are generally
believed
>to be related to the Semitic languages.)
>
>Semitic is actually pretty fluid when it comes to word order types:  The
>Ethiopian Semitic languages are all SOV...

    Interesting. What's the situation in the Hamitic
branch of Afro-Asiatic? Or Proto-Afro-Asiatic itself?

>
>> FWIW, Hebrew has a definite article
>> and lacks the indefinite article.
>> (I believe that the situation in Arabic is similar.)
>
>It is.  For what it's worth, I don't know of any VSO languages with
>*indefinite* articles, just definite ones.  I don't know what, if anything,
>this means.  (Of course, indefinite articles--distinct from the word for
>"one"--seem to be rather rare.)


In most cases, is the indefinite article derived from the word
for "one"?


Dan Sulani

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A word is an awesome thing.