ABSTRACT
In Chapter 2 various studies of the basic word order at the clause level were surveyed and discussed. Though it was not explicitly mentioned there, one of the major functions of the basic word order at that level is to indicate ‘who is doing X to whom’, as it were. This can easily be demonstrated by comparing the following two English sentences. Note that the roles of the NPs the girl, and the boy in (1) are different from those of the same NPs in (2) despite the fact that these two sentences contain exactly the same (number of) words and constituents. By roles is meant the relationship that holds between the NPs and the verb, and also between the NPs themselves. In (1) the girl is the ‘kicker’ and the boy is the ‘kickee’. In (2) the roles of these NPs are reversed, with the boy being the ‘kicker’ and the girl being the ‘kickee’.
The girl kicked the boy.
The boy kicked the girl.
