Word Order
Word order in Oceanic languages is highly diverse, and is distributed in the following geographic regions (Lynch, Ross, & Crowley 2002:49).
- SVO: Admiralty Islands, most of Markham Valley, Siasi Islands, most of New Britain, New Ireland, some parts of Bougainville Island, most parts of the southeast Solomon Islands, most parts of Vanuatu, some parts of New Caledonia, most of Micronesia
- SOV: central and southeast Papua New Guinea, some parts of Markham Valley, Madang coast, Wewak coast, Sarmi coast, a few parts of Bougainville, some parts of New Britain
- VSO: New Georgia, some parts of Santa Ysabel Island, much of Polynesia, Yap
- VOS: Fijian language, Anejom language, Loyalty Islands, Kiribati, many parts of New Caledonia, Gela language
- TVX (where T = topic, V = verb, X = arguments other than topic): much of Bougainville Island, Choiseul Island, some parts of Santa Ysabel Island
Read more about this topic: Oceanic Languages
Famous quotes containing the words word and/or order:
“Our woods are sylvan, and their inhabitants woodmen and rustics; that is selvaggia, and the inhabitants are salvages. A civilized man, using the word in the ordinary sense, with his ideas and associations, must at length pine there, like a cultivated plant, which clasps its fibres about a crude and undissolved mass of peat.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In order for the wheel to turn, for life to be lived, impurities are needed, and the impurities of impurities in the soil, too, as is known, if it is to be fertile. Dissension, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are needed: Fascism does not want them, forbids them, and that’s why you’re not a Fascist; it wants everybody to be the same, and you are not. But immaculate virtue does not exist either, or if it exists it is detestable.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)