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I've read that languages with the same word order often have similarities, even if they're not related, purely because some grammatical features will force a language to use others. For instance, if a language doesn't indicate case, it'll be forced into a verb-medial order (SVO or OVS) to differentiate subject from object.

What I'm finding annoying is I can't find anything like this for verb-final languages. The only other language I know to any extent is German. I have tried to learn Japanese in the past, and more recently Korean, but I never got that far with either.

I also find it annoying that you can't just find lists of grammatical features languages can have. Everything I can find just goes into excessive detail about one specific language rather than giving a general overview of languages that fall into specific categories.

Japanese is pro-drop, and its common to leave out most noun phrases. Japanese tend to just leave it to the listener to fill in the gaps. That doesn't mean they never specify subjects and objects, they just don't bother to repeat them once they're introduced. And of course Japanese is topic-prominent, so its normal to assume that every sentence has the same topic until another is specified.

But are all SOV languages like this? Personally, I find it annoying that you have to work your way through all the noun phrases before you get to the verb, which does most of the work in determining the role of everything in the sentence really; i.e. you can't figure out what happened to the direct object until you get to the verb.

The only 'universals' I know of is they tend to be head-final and post-positional. That's it. Like I said, I don't know one myself to any degree (and yes, I know German sometimes uses SOV, but its primarily SVO, well unless maybe you count sentences with auxiliary verbs).

curiousdannii
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  • Which question are you really asking: "What grammatical features do SOV languages often share", or "are all SOV languages like this?". – user6726 Feb 11 '18 at 05:58
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    I don't think it's true that "if a language doesn't indicate case, it'll be forced into a verb-medial order (SVO or OVS) to differentiate subject from object." If a language has strict SOV or VSO word order, for example, the identity of the subject will be unambiguous even without differential marking of the subject and the object. And even if the word order is not so strict, languages can get along with some ambiguity. Consider that many languages that have grammatical case have nominative-accusative syncretism in at least some contexts (it's universal in Indo-European for neuter gender) – brass tacks Feb 11 '18 at 06:06
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    The relevant universal seems to be #8 in "The Universals Archive", but it's stated a bit differently ("IF basic order for nominal arguments is verb-final (i.e. SOV or OSV), THEN there is almost always a case system") and the notes mention a number of counterexamples and express some doubt as to its validity. – brass tacks Feb 11 '18 at 06:28
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    (Verb agreement also seems to be an important way subjects and objects are disambiguated in languages that don't have case markers: Universal 296 is "IF nouns do not inflect for case and verbs carry no relational marking either, THEN basic order is SVO or OSV" and it seems to be harder to find counterexamples to that one) – brass tacks Feb 11 '18 at 06:39
  • To add to @sumelic's point, prepositions are yet another strategy for preserving free word order. Most Iberian Romance languages generally require a before an animate direct object. This is very analogous to Slavic requiring genitive forms for masculine accusative animate, which would otherwise be indistinguishable from nominative. – Adam Bittlingmayer Feb 13 '18 at 07:57
  • @A.M.Bittlingmayer This is not quite correct, in Slavic languages the masculine animate accusative forms equal to the genitive forms. Your comment is only correct from a diachronic point of view, in corpora the appropriate tag is ACC. – Atamiri Feb 14 '18 at 01:19
  • @Atamiri I know, but it seems very arbitrary, after years I have not made up my mind about which point of view is correct. (Would like to hear some arguments for either.) Anyway it makes no difference for the question at hand, the point is that Spanish uses prepositions where Slavic without Bulgaro-Macedonian uses morphological case. – Adam Bittlingmayer Feb 15 '18 at 10:18
  • That reminds me, there is another strategy for allowing free worder without case, found in both Spanish and Bulgaro-Macedonian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronominal_reduplication. – Adam Bittlingmayer Feb 15 '18 at 10:19
  • @A.M.Bittlingmayer Well, the clear argument is that direct objects in affirmative sentence are indicated with the accusative so you can’t take the masc anim forms to be in the genitive without arbitrarily making the syntax more complex. As for Bulgarian and Macedonian they use head-marking on verbs but Macedonian differs form Bulgarian in how consequently it uses head-marking. Bulgarian is more like Spanish in this respect. – Atamiri Feb 15 '18 at 11:53
  • @Atamiri What's an example? Note I said they "require genitive forms", nobody is claiming that it is actually genitive syntactically, although there again I am suspicious of absolute claims for either. – Adam Bittlingmayer Feb 15 '18 at 14:59
  • @A.M.Bittlingmayer Example of what? In an affirmative sentence the subject has nominative case and the direct object has accusative case so whenever a substantive serves as a direct object the used form is the accusative. If the verb is negated it might have genitive case but this rule depends on the language. In English you wouldn’t say “sheep” is a singular form, it’s both singular and plural. Maybe you just seem to confuse morphology and syntax, – Atamiri Feb 15 '18 at 16:06
  • Circular 2. Untrue anyway, as some verbs take dative, like помочь, just like in German. 3. Orthogonal to affirmation and negation.
    • – Adam Bittlingmayer Feb 16 '18 at 10:03