L. PASTOR, I. LAKA
Copyright © 2013 SciRes. 253
Ueno & Polinsky (2009) tackle the interaction between basic
word order (OV/VO) and processing constraints from a differ-
ent but not incompatible perspective, and argue that VO-OV
languages resort to different syntactic phenomena as strategies
to facilitate processing, and that these distinct patterns are re-
flected in the frequency with which they employ these gram-
matical resources.
Ueno & Polinsky (2009) follow the assumption that the verb
plays a pivotal role in sentence processing, because argument
relations are resolved when the verb is reached (Head-driven
model, Pritchett, 1992; Pickering & Barry, 1991; Pickering, 1993;
Trueswell, Tanenhaus, & Kello, 1993; Garnsey, Pearlmutter,
Myers, & Lotocky, 1997). According to this assumption, SOV
sentences should present an extra processing cost because two
arguments must be retained in working memory before proc-
essing the verb: the subject (S) and object (O). Ueno & Polinsky
(2009) hypothesize that OV languages will resort to some syn-
tactic phenomena (such as pro-drop, intransitive and others)
more frequently than VO languages in order to minimize the
amount of arguments expressed before the verb. In particular,
they argue that pro-drop (unexpressed arguments) and Intransi-
tivity might serve as strategies to reduce the number of prever-
bal arguments in OV languages. The former minimizes the num-
ber of arguments phonologically expressed, whereas the latter
minimizes the number of arguments required by the verb.
To test this hypothesis, Ueno & Polinsky (2009) conducted
two comparative corpus studies. A first study compared English
(VO) and Japanese (OV) written sentences, and it revealed a
similar frequency in the usage of pro-drop in transitive sentences
in both languages, and a more frequent use of intransitive sen-
tences in Japanese (OV) as compared to English (VO). The
second study compared the narrative production of native speak-
ers of English, Spanish (VO), Japanese and Turkish (OV), and
it replicate the results obtained in the first study: pro-drop is
used more often in transitive than in intransitive sentences in all
languages (Spanish, Japanese and Turkish) and intransitive sen-
tences occur more frequently in OV languages (Japanese and
Turkish) than in VO languages (English and Spanish). Thus,
whereas pro-drop is more frequently used in transitive senten-
ces in both VO-OV languages with equivalent frequency, in-
transitive sentences are significatively more frequent in OV lan-
guages. Therefore, according to this study, resort to intransitive
formats reflects an OV-specific strategy, directed at minimizing
the number of preverbal arguments in a sentence.
The Current Study
The present investigation extends Ueno & Polinsky’s (2009)
study, by comparing Spanish (VO) and Basque (OV). We con-
ducted a comparative corpus study of Spanish (VO) and Basque
(OV) aimed at determining whether Basque, presents a higher
frequency of intransitives as do Turkish and Japanese in com-
parison to VO languages like Spanish, while the frequency of
pro-drop would be similar in Basque and Spanish.
One main reason to pursue this study is to ascertain the gen-
eral validity of the results obtained by Ueno & Polinsky for OV
languages, and to explore Spanish in a larger corpus. Both Span-
ish and Basque can place subjects and objects after the verb, a
possibility not available in English, Turkish, Japanese and Ko-
rean. Furthermore, in the present study, the corpora employed
are significantly larger than those used by Ueno & Polinsky
(2009).
Characteristics of Basque
Like Japanese and Turkish, Basque has basic SOV word or-
der (cf. 1a). However, unlike Japanese and Turkish, which have
strictly verb-final sentences, Basque may have postverbal ar-
guments (cf. (1c, d, e, f)) (Laka, 1996; Hualde & Ortiz de Ur-
bina, 2003; De Rijk, 2007; Erdozia et al., 2009).
1) a)gizon-a-k emakume-a-Ø ikusi du (SOV)
man-Det-ERG woman-Det-ABS see AUX
“The man has seen the woman”
b)emakumea gizonak ikusi du (OSV)
c)gizonak ikusi du emakumea (SVO)
d)emakumea ikusi du gizonak (OVS)
e)ikusi du gizonak emakumea (VSO)
f)ikusi du emakumea gizonak (VOS)
In addition, Basque is a pro-drop language, i.e., the argu-
ments that agree with the verb do not have to be phonologically
expressed. Both subjects and objects can be omitted (cf. (2b, c,
d, e)), unlike in Spanish, where there only subjects can be unex-
pressed.
2) a)Ni-k zu-ri liburua-Ø ekarri dizut
I-ERG you-DAT book-ABS bring AUX
“I bring you the book”
b)
ro zuri liburua ekarri dizut [subject pro-drop]
c)Nik pro liburua ekarri dizut [direct object pro-drop]
d)Nik zuri pro ekarri dizut [indirect object pro-drop]
e)
ro pro pro ekarri dizut [subject, indirect object
and direct object pro-drop]
These two grammatical properties of Basque make it a rele-
vant grammar to investigate whether all OV resort to similar
strategies to facilitate processing. In particular, we seek to as-
certain whether Basque behaves like Japanese and Turkish using
a high frequency of intransitive sentences in order to reduce ar-
guments of the preverbal area, or whether this language will re-
sort to postverbal arguments as a specific strategy, not available
to Japanese and Turkish. We also seek to determine the status
of pro-drop as a facilitating strategy, by comparing the ratios of
pro-drop in Basque and Spanish.
Method
A total of 2800 sentences from press and books in both Spa-
nish and Basque (1400 sentences/source × 2 sources) were ana-
lyzed for sentence type. Each source was divided into different
genres in both languages in order to have a heterogeneous cor-
pus. Press source was divided in 7 genres (business, culture, so-
ciety, politics, world, national and sports) (100 sentences/genre
× 7 genres × 2 languages); whereas books in 4 genres (comedy,
mystery, historical and non-fictional) (175 sentences/genre × 4
genres × 2 languages).
Matrix clauses of the sentences were manually coded for sen-
tence type, while adjoined and embedded clauses were disre-
garded. They were classified as either “Intransitive” or “Tran-
sitive”. The Intransitive category included intransitive verbs,
non-verbal sentences (adjectival and nominal), and demotion
structures (passives with or without the by-phrase, impersonals,
middle voices…) (Table 1). The transitive category included