Open AccessA typological anomaly in some Surma languages
Author(s) -
Peter Unseth
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
studies in african linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.178
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 2154-428X
pISSN - 0039-3533
DOI - 10.32473/sal.v18i3.107473
Subject(s) - linguistics , word order , anomaly (physics) , computer science , word (group theory) , natural language processing , history , philosophy , physics , condensed matter physics
This paper presents evidence that at least three languages in the Surma group (and possibly also Proto-Surma) are exceptions to the proposed typological "universal" that languages with basic VSO word order do not have post-positions [Greenberg 1963:78]. There is no attempt made here to hypothesize how this came about, only to call attention to the fact that these three languages are typologically anomalous.