The Distinction
The following trees illustrate the distinction:
The presence of the VP constituent in the configurational tree on the left allows one to define the syntactic relations (subject vs. object) in terms of the configuration. The subject is the argument that appears outside of the VP, whereas the object appears inside it. The flatter structure on the right, where there is no VP, forces/allows one to view aspects of syntax differently. More generally, Hale proposed that non-configurational languages have the following characteristics:
- free (or more accurately, pragmatically determined) word order
- extensive use of null anaphora
- syntactically discontinuous expressions
However, it is not clear that these properties all cluster together. Languages that have been described as non-configurational include Mohawk, Warlpiri, Nahuatl and O'odham (Papago).
Read more about this topic: Non-configurational Language
Famous quotes containing the word distinction:
“At sundown, leaving the river road awhile for shortness, we went by way of Enfield, where we stopped for the night. This, like most of the localities bearing names on this road, was a place to name which, in the midst of the unnamed and unincorporated wilderness, was to make a distinction without a difference, it seemed to me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Genocide begins, however improbably, in the conviction that classes of biological distinction indisputably sanction social and political discrimination.”
—Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946)