[B-Greek] left marking, right salience in general linguistics

Harold Holmyard hholmyard at ont.com
Mon Jan 1 06:08:29 EST 2007


Randall Buth wrote:
> Just a brief note to give a broader linguistic perspective to these wordorder discussions.
> Within general linguistics it is considered a language universal thatsalience, the important meaning-bearing part of a communication, naturallyoccurs to the right.It is also considered a language universal that special marking occurs tothe left.
>   

HH: It is hard to see how there can be a universal along these lines 
when some languages (e.g., Hebrew) move from right to left, and others 
(e.g., Greek) move from left to right. Were you perhaps  thinking in 
terms of Greek? Would the general rule be that salience naturally occurs 
at the end of a sentence and special marking at the beginning?

Yours,
Harold Holmyard




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