Topic, focus and word order in Maltese

Abstract

Greenberg’s (1954) classic work on word order, or to be more precise constituent order typology attempts, among other things, to classify languages in terms of word order types. Greenberg’s work and other work based on it (e.g. Vennemann 1974 and Hawkins 1980, among others) has shown that there is a tendency for languages to be more or less harmonious in terms of the ordering relation between head and complement or modifier. For example, a language with V(erb) O(bject) order such as Irish (and Classical Arabic) will be expected to have Prepositions, while an OV language like Mongolian (or Japanese) will have postpositions (universals 3 and 4 respectively). Such a correlation across categories implies that for a given language it is clear what, say, the basic or unmarked S, V and O order is. Basic S, V and O order, however, can be difficult to determine, in particular in so-called structurally non-configurational languages like Maltese, i.e. languages with a certain degree of free word order. The degree of variation in S, V and O order in such languages is such that it is difficult to intuitively or formally make clear judgements about basic order, as opposed to derived or marked order. It is therefore not possible to apply Greenberg’s findings to a language like Maltese before it is made clear what the basic word order is, and whether there is one at all. We therefore decided to have a close look at the Maltese data to see what generalisations about S, V and O order we could come up with. The aim is (a) to determine whether one basic or unmarked word order exists, and (b) to give structural and functional explanations for the other “derived” word orders. It is only after having explored the richness of word order possibilities that we can then decide whether Maltese is harmonious in a Greenbergian sense with respect to the alignment of head and complement or modifier across categories, Maltese being, for instance, a prepositional language.