Workshop on the Correlates of Verb-Initial Word Order; Tucson, Arizona; February 2003

对语言进行类型学分类的一个经典方法是根据其基本成分的顺序：主语、宾语和动词。 在传统的类型学文献中，这些组被认为与其他句法现象相关。 大多数关于这些关联的研究都集中在西欧语言上，这些语言主要表现出主语-动词-宾语（SVO）或主语-宾语-动词（SOV）顺序。 虽然这些研究已经取得了丰硕的成果，但需要更多地关注显示其他顺序的语言，特别是动词-主语-宾语（VSO）顺序。 世界上只有不到9%的语言具有VSO排序的特征。 VSO语言的例子是爱尔兰语、威尔士语、阿拉伯语、查莫罗语、柏柏尔语、布雷东语、萨摩亚语和汤加语。VSO排序相对罕见，并且在理论句法方面存在很大问题。 这导致了相当大的争议学者之间的程度，大多数或所有的VSO语言共享特定的句法属性。 该奖项将支持一个研讨会，该研讨会将汇集约18位代表不同语系和不同理论方向的领先学者，分享他们关于动词首字母词序相关性的研究结果，并讨论结构方法对词序的影响以及对词序相关性分析的预测能力。 讲习班定于2003年2月在亚利桑那州图森举行。 除了受邀演讲者外，其他个人也可以参加，他们事先提交演讲摘要供匿名审查。 本次研讨会的成果是将发表在期刊特刊或书籍中的论文汇编成一本。通过加强采用不同理论观点的语言学家之间的交流，以及通过增加对VSO语言的扩展理解如何促进对句法和语言学理论的整体理解，本次研讨会将有助于促进语言学的发展。 该研讨会还将促进对VSO语言的理解，其中许多语言，如爱尔兰语，正处于灭绝的危险之中。

A classic means of grouping languages typologically is in terms of the order of their basic constituents: subject, object, and verb. In traditional typological literature, these groups are thought to correlate with other syntactic phenomenon. Most research on these correlates has focused on western European languages, which primarily exhibit subject-verb-object (SVO) or subject-object-verb (SOV) orders. Although these studies has been fruitful, more attention needs to be given to languages that display other orders, particularly verb-subject-object (VSO) ordering. VSO ordering characterizes less than nine percent of the world's languages. Examples of VSO languages are Irish, Welsh, Arabic, Chamorro, Berber, Breton, Samoan, and Tongan. VSO ordering relatively rare, and it is highly problematic in terms of theoretical syntax. This has led to considerable controversy among scholars with respect to the degree to which most or all of the VSO languages share specific syntactical properties. This award will support a workshop that will bring together about 18 leading scholars representing diverse language families and different theoretical orientations to share their findings regarding verb-initial word-order correlates and to discuss the implications of structural approaches to word order and to the predictive power of analyses to word-order correlations. The workshop is scheduled to be held in Tucson, Arizona, in February 2003. In addition to invited speakers, participation also will be open to other individuals who submit abstracts of presentations for anonymous review beforehand. Outcomes are the workshop are expected to be in the form of a compilation of papers presented in a special issue of a journal or in a book.This workshop will help advance linguistics by increasing communication among linguists who have employed different theoretical perspective and by increasing knowledge of how expanded understanding of VSO languages can advance understanding of syntax and linguistic theory as a whole. The workshop also will advance understanding about VSO languages, many of which, like Irish, are in danger of extinction.