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Part of
Multilingual Acquisition and Learning: An ecosystemic view to diversity
Edited by Elena Babatsouli
[Studies in Bilingualism 67] 2024
► pp. 556–584

Chapter 21
Prosody and head directionality

On the predictability of the prosody of conjunctive coordination

| University of Ottawa | Universidad Nebrija
| University of Ottawa
| University of Ottawa | Carleton University

The relationship between prosodic encliticization of the conjunctive coordinator and OV word order (or the equivalent correlation between VO and procliticization) is a strong descriptive universal. Namely, if a language shows prosodic encliticization (prosodic attachment after the initial coordinand), as in “John-and Peter”, then that language is necessarily OV, as is the case in Japanese. However, if a language has procliticization of the conjunctive coordinator, as in “John and-Peter”, we cannot say whether it is OV or VO, since, for example, English, Spanish and Basque display procliticization but English and Spanish are VO while Basque is OV. Using experimental data from speakers of convergent (OV – enclisis and VO – proclisis) languages such as Japanese, English, and Spanish and non-convergent (OV – proclisis) languages such as Basque, the study addresses the strength of the relationship between the encliticization of conjunctive coordination and word order in the mind of native speakers of these four languages.

Keywords: conjunctive coordination, cliticization, OV/VO typology, hierarchy of difficulty, oral acceptability judgements
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Coordination in natural language
    • 1.2The prosody of coordination at the light of formal linguistics, psycholinguistics, and applied linguistics
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Typology of coordinate constructions
    • 2.2Variation in coordination strategies
    • 2.3Proclisis and enclisis
  • 3.The study
    • 3.1Research questions and hypothesis
    • 3.2Participants
    • 3.3Data elicitation
    • 3.4Experimental results
    • 3.5Results beyond conjunctive coordination
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 30 May 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.67.21lic
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