Word Order in Eastern Armenian Language Based on Dryer's Branching Direction Theory

Document Type : مقالات علمی پژوهشی

Authors
C. Sarkissian Seghin 1
M. Mirdehghan Farashah 2
1 Ph.D. Candidate in General Linguistics, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
2 Associate Professor of Linguistics, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
10.52547/LRR.13.6.12
Abstract
In the present research word order has been used to determine the type of Eastern Armenian Language in comparison to the groups of “Eurasian” and “world” languages based on Dryer's (1992) “Branching Direction Theory”. Dryer (1992), has introduced 23 correlation pairs as verb-patterned and object-patterned, to determine the word order in languages. He has argued against Greenberg's (1963) “Head-Dependent Theory” and by presenting “Branching Direction Theory” has concluded that the word order correlations reflect a tendency for languages to be consistently right-branching or consistently left-branching. The main question here is to investigate the belonging of Eastern Armenian language to the OV or VO language types, in comparison to “Eurasian” as well as “world languages”. In achieving the research goals, 19 valid correlation pairs have been analyzed within the collected data. The results show that Eastern Armenian language in comparison to group of “Eurasian” languages has 14 characteristics of strong OV languages and 15 characteristics of strong VO languages, hence, it has a tendency to VO languages; In case of its comparison to the group of “world languages” it has 14 characteristics of strong OV languages and 14 characteristics of strong VO languages, hence, it has a tendency to both OV and VO languages. Furthermore, it illustrates that despite Dryer's (1992) claim, the Eastern Armenian language does not have tendency to be classified consistently in a left-branching or right-branching type. Based on these, the median type could be considered as an independent type for Eastern Armenian language.

1. Introduction

One of the most important topics in language typology is the study of word order in languages. Dreyer is among the most well known linguists in this field. He (1992) has introduced 23 correlation pairs as verb-patterned and object-patterned, to determine the word order in languages and by presenting “Branching Direction Theory” he has concluded that the word order correlations reflect a tendency for languages to be consistently right-branching or consistently left-branching. The main question here is to investigate the belonging of Eastern Armenian Language to the OV or VO language types, in comparison to “Eurasian” as well as “world languages”.



2. Literature Review

The question of whether the basic word order in Eastern Armenian is OV or VO is a matter of controversy. Many descriptive and typological studies consider it to be a SOV language (Der-Houssikian, 1978; Dryer, 1998; Dum-Tragut, 2002; Howkins, 1979; Hawkins, 1983; Kozentseva, 1995; Minassian, 1980). The studies based on the generative grammar have placed it in group of SOV languages, considering that it is head final, therefore SVO order is considered as the result of movement (Hodgson, 2013; Giorgi & Haroutyunian, 2016; Kahnemuyipour & Megerdoomian, 2011; Tamrazian, 1991; Tamrazian, 1994). Some studies have placed it the median type between OV and VO (Dum-Tragut, 2009; Dryer, 2013 in WALS). Other grammarian believe that SVO is its basic order (Abrahamyan, 1975; Arakelyan, 1958; Badikyan, 1976; Papoyan & Badikyan, 2003). Faghiri and Samvelian (2019) show that the distribution of SVO order is too high to qualify as a marked option.





3. Methodology

As a descriptive-analytical study, the main data collection of the present research has been provided by the first author as a native Eastern Armenian speaker in the form of sentences, clauses and phrases in Eastern Armenian. In addition the gathered data has been asked from 15 other Iranian-Armenian speakers and have been compared to the examples of Avetisyan and Zakaryan (2012).



4. Results

The results show that 4 out of 23 correlation pairs do not apply in Eastern Armenian which are as follows: 1. adpositional phrases and manner adverbs, 2. order of verb and negative particle, 3. order of content verb and negative auxiliary verb and 4. order of plural word and noun.

The 19 correlation pairs which are used in this study are 1. adposition and NP, 2. N and Relative clause, 3. noun and genitive, 4. adjective and standard of comparison, 5. verb and adpositional phrase, 6. verb and manner adverb, 7. copula and predicate, 8. "want" and subordinate verb, 9. noun and adjective, 10. noun and demonstrative, 11. adjective and intensifier, 12. tense/aspect auxiliary and verb, 13. question particle and sentence, 14. adverbial subordinator and S, 15. noun and article, 16. verb and subject, 17. numeral and noun, 18. tense/aspect affix and verb stem, 19. possessive affix and noun.

There are two differences between results of present research in compared to Wals data. The first difference is about adposition. Examples 1 to 4 respectively show that Eastern Armenian has pretposition, postposition and adpositions which used as both preposition and postposition.

Example 1. preposition



ARA-n
gn-AtsH
depi
tun


Ara-DEF
go-3SG.PAST
to
home



"Ara went home."

Example 2. postposition




ARA-n
siRAn-i
pHoxARen
kARtH-AtsH


Ara-DEF
Siran-ezafe
instead of
read-3SG.PAST



"Ara read instead of Siran."

Example 3. preposition




bAtsHi
ARAj-itsH
mARtH
tSH-kA-R


but
Ara-ABL
person
NEG-be-3SG.PAST



"There was no one but Ara."

Example 4. postposition




ARAj-itsH
batsHi
mARtH
tSH-kA-R


Ara-ABL
But
Person
NEG-be-3SG.PAST



"There was no one but Ara."

The second difference is about question particle which could be placed at the beginning, middle or end of the sentence. Alternatively, the sentence can be used without question particle. Examples 5 to 8 show the position of question particle while example 9 represents a sentence without question particle.

Example 5.




ARtHjokH
du
indz
siR-um
es


Q-marker
You
Me
like-PROG
2SG.PRES.AUX



"Do you like me?"

Example 6.




du
ARtHjokH
indz
siR-um
es


you
Q-marker
me
like-PROG
2SG.PRES.AUX



"Do you like me?"

Example 7.




du
indz
ARtHjokH
siR-um
es


you
me
Q-marker
like-PROG
2SG.PRES.AUX



"Do you like me?"

Example 8.




du
indz
siR-um
es
ARtHjokH


you
me
like-PROG
2SG.PRES.AUX
Q-marker



"Do you like me?"

Example 9.




du
indz
siR-um
es


you
me
like-PROG
2SG.PRES.AUX



"Do you like me?"

The results show that Eastern Armenian language in comparison to group of “Eurasian” languages has 14 characteristics of strong OV languages and 15 characteristics of strong VO languages, hence, it has a tendency to VO languages; In case of its comparison to the group of “world languages” it has 14 characteristics of strong OV languages and 14 characteristics of strong VO languages, hence, it has a tendency to both OV and VO languages. Table 1 shows Eastern Armenian language in comparison to Eurasian languages and table 2 shows Eastern Armenian language in comparison to world languages.



Table 1.

Eastern Armenian language in comparison to Eurasian languages





Element
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Total


Type



Strong

verb final
X

X
X
X
X
X

X
X
X
X



X
X
X
X
14


Weak

verb

final
X
X

X
X


X



X
X
X
X




9


Weak

Verb medial
X

X
X
X
X
X




X


X




8


Strong

Verb medial
X
X

X
X


X
X
X
X
X
X
X

X
X
X
X
15









Table 2:

Eastern Armenian language in comparison to world languages





Element
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Total


Type





Strong

verb final
X
X
X
X
X
X
X


X
X
X


X
X
X
X

14


Weak

verb

final
X


X
X


X
X


X
X
X




X
9


Weak verb medial
X

X
X
X
X
X

X


X


X




9


Strong

Verb medial
X
X

X
X


X

X
X
X
X
X

X
X
X
X
14





5. Conclusion

The research findings show that in comparison to the group of “Eurasian” languages Eastern Armenian has a tendency towards VO languages. In case of its comparison to the group of “world languages”, it has a tendency to both OV and VO languages. Based on these, the median type could be considered as an independent type for Eastern Armenian language.

Keywords

Subjects

• دبیرمقدم، م. (1392). رده‌شناسی زبان‌های ایرانی. تهران: سمت.
ی رحمه، ب.، دری، ن.، عامری، ح.، غلامحسین‌زاده، غ.، و متقی‌زاده، ع. (1399). بررسی رده‌شناختی تطبیقی حرکت پرسشواژه‌ها در زبان‌های فارسی و عربی. جستارهای زبانی. د 11. ش 2. صص 1-32.
• Abrahamyan, S., Arakelyan, V. & Kosyan, V. (1975). The Armenian Language: Syntax (Vol. 2). Yerevan. [In Armenian]
• Arakelyan, V. (1958). Armenian Syntax (Vol. 1). Yerevan. [In Armenian]
• Avetisyan, Y. & Zakaryan, H. (2012). Armenian Language. Yerevan: Yerevan State University. [In Armenian]
• Badikyan, Kh. (1976). The Word Order in the Simple Sentences in Modern Armenian. Yerevan. [In Armenian].
• Dabir-Moghaddam, M. (1392). Typology of Iranian Languages. Tehran: Samt [In Persian].
• Der-Houssikian, H. (1978). The Semantic Significance of S, O, V Sequenses in Armenian. In Mohammad A. Jazayery, Edgar C. Polomé & warner Winter (eds). Linguistic and Literary Studies, v.2, Descriptive Linguistics, 227-236.
• Dryer, M. (1998). Aspects of Word Order in the Languages of Europe. In Siewierska, Anna. (ed). Constituent Order in the Languages of Europe, 283-319.
• ________ (1992). The Greenbergian word order correlations. Language, 81-138.
• Dum-Tragut, J. (2009). Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian. Amsterdam: John Benjamin.
• Dum-Tragut, J. (2002). Word Order Correlations and Word Order Change: An "Applied-typological" Study on Literary Armenian Variants (v.22). München: Lincom GmbH.
• Faghiri, P. & Samvelian, P. (2019, Nov). Modern Eastern Armenian: SOV or SVO?. Western Conference on Linguistics, Fresno, United States. https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-02720181
• Giorgi, A. & Haroutyunian, S. (2016). Word Order and Information Structure in Modern Eastern Armenian, Journal of the society for Armenian Studies 25, 185-201.
• Hawkins, J. (1983). Word Order Universals. New York: Academic Press.
• Hawkins, J. (1979). Implicational Universals as Predictors of Word Order Change. Language 55,618-648
• Hodgson, K. (2013). Discourse Configurationality in Eastern Armenian: The Nominal Projection. MPhil thesis, University of Cambridge.
• Hübschmann, H. (1875). Ueber die Stellung des Armenischen im Kreise der indogermanischen Sprachen
• Kahnemuyipour, A. & Megerdoomian, K. (2011). Second Position Clitics and the vP Phase: The Case of the Armenian Auxiliary. Linguistic Inquiry 42, 152-162.
• Kozintseva, N. (1995). Modern Eastern Armenian. (Language of the World/Materials, 22.). Munchen: Lincom Europa.
• _____________ (1999). Modern Eastern Armenian. Munchen: Lincom Europa.
• Malherbe , M. & Rosenberg, S. (1996). Les langage de l'humanite: une encyclopedia des 3000 langues dans le monde. Paris: Laffont.
• Minassian, M. (1980). Grammaire d'Arménien Oriental. New York: Delmar.
• Khorenatsi, M. (2017). History of Armenia. Yerevan: Nahapet [In Armenian]
• Papoyan, A. & Badikyan, K. (2003). Modern Armenian Syntax. Yerevan. [In Armenian].
• Petermann, H. (1837). Grammatica linguae armenicae. Berlin.
• Rahme, B., Dorri, N., Ameri, H., Gholamhoseinzadeh, Gh., & Motaghizadeh, I. (2020). A Comparative Typological Study of Interrogative Words in Persian and Arabic. Language Related Research. 11(2). Pp. 1-32. [In Persian].
• Stevick, E. (1955). Syntax of Colloquial East Armenian. Cornell University.
• Tamrazian, A. (1991). Focus and WH-movement in Armenian. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 3, 102-121.
• Tamrazian, A. (1994). The Syntax of Armenian: Chains and the Auxiliary. PHD Thesis, University College London.
Language Related Research
Volume 13, Issue 6 - Serial Number 72
January and February 2022
Pages 355-394