ABSTRACT

Some typological relation exists between the order of the object with respect to the verb and the order of the relative clause (RC) with respect to its Head is known since Greenberg. While Verb/Object (VO) languages have postnominal RCs, prenominal RCs are found exclusively in OV languages. We submit that the correlation between V/O order and the order of RCs and their Heads is intimately related to the order of complement and adjunct subordinate clauses with respect to the verb. In VO languages subordinate clauses follow the V, as they, typically, can in "nonrigid" OV languages. Subordinate clauses, however, do not ordinarily follow the V in "rigid" OV languages, which are more strictly V-final. In turn, the possibility for a clause to follow the V or the N seems to some extent related to the presence of initial complementizers. While preverbal and prenominal clauses have final rather than initial complementizers, postverbal and postnominal clauses have initial rather than final complementizers.