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Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Natural grammar is SOV


At least that's what an article of Science Daily suggests based on some materials of the University of Chicago.


Experiments on numerous native speakers of four different languages (English, Spanish, Turkish and Chinese) were asked to describe verbally and then by signs some sequences and, while the spoken forms varied according to language, the signs always followed the subject-object-verb gramatical structure. When asked to sort images to describe these sequences as in a non-verbal cartoon they also followed the SOV system without exception.

While Turkish language does follow this structure, English, Spanish and Chinese instead follow the SVO system. Example: I write something would be correct English but I something write would be the natural intuitive grammar instead.

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