 There are several ways of classifying languages, phonologically, on the basis of several segmental and suprasegmental parameters, or structurally, on the basis of the internal structure of their words. The syntactic classification, which is the focus of this e-lecture, defines languages on the basis of their word order and the relationship between heads and modifiers. How this is done and what types of languages can be identified using this parameter will be discussed in the following, but what exactly is word order? Well, let's illustrate this on the basis of a simple declarative sentence in present-day English. In this example, the order of the words would be adverb, determiner, adjective, noun, verb, pronoun, determiner and noun. So this is the order of the words. However, in looking at each category, too many possibilities would emerge and too few generalizations across languages could be made. Thus, word order is not defined as the ordering of the words within a sentence, but as the ordering of the functional elements within a sentence. Now, these functional elements here, of course, are adverbial, subject, verb, object and complement. Few of these functions, however, are not representative for the classification of the languages of the world. The adverbial, for example, is often mobile. We could say my old friend called me a fool yesterday and mobility, of course, is not a good parameter for a classification in terms of ordering. And the object complement here, a fool, is by and large dependent on specific verbs. And by the way, there is also a subject complement. Hence, these two functional elements are normally excluded from the typological classification of the languages of the world and we get, as a result, the three central syntactic functions subject, verb and object as the main parameters for the typological classification of the languages of the world in terms of syntax. Now, this provides us with six theoretically possible word order patterns. For example, we could think of languages that exhibit the subject, verb, object order or languages that use a subject, object, verb ordering pattern or languages that use the verb, subject, object pattern. So, these are three possibilities. Further possibilities could be a verb, object, subject pattern. Then we could think of languages that use the object in the first position, then the subject comes second and the verb is final or the other way around, object, verb, subject structures. So, these are the theoretically possible patterns and it is quite interesting that the majority of the languages of the world uses this pattern where the subject in each of these cases precedes the object. Patterns where the subject follows the object are marginal. So, it is the first three ordering types that constitute a parameter for the classification of the languages of the world. Let's illustrate this using actual examples. Now we all know that English is a language which exhibits the SVO word order. Turkish is an example of an S-O-V language and the Arabic language is here illustrated by the Saudi Arabian flag, our language is where the verb comes first. So, these are our three main types. All other types are marginal. For example, VOS is exhibited by a language called Malagasy, spoken in Madagascar. And even less representative is OVS, spoken in Brazil. The language is called Hiscariana and it only has a handful of native speakers. And an OSV order is often associated with the language spoken in the Caucasian area. The language is called Kabadian, but it is highly disputed whether the word order is really OSV. So, these are the main patterns and we know that SVO, S-O-V, VSO are the constitute the majority of the languages of the world. But how do we establish the basic word order of a language? How do we find out whether a language is SVO, S-O-V, etc.? Well let's illustrate this using present day English. In present day English declarative sentences and these are the sentence types we are using, the following word order types can be found or not. Well we know that English typically has SVO patterns, a sentence like the man saw the woman. What about S-O-V? Well S-O-V is impossible in present day English. You wouldn't find an example that exhibits this word order pattern. S-O-V, the third of the majority types is possible in present day English. Never has the man seen the woman. However, as you may note, there is an adverbial that is fronted. So we have never the adverbial, then has the inflicted component of the verb, the man, the subject and the woman, the object. However, this construction is restricted in many ways. The adverbial has to be negative. Never has the man seen the woman works, but very often has the man seen the woman does not. The next ordering pattern would be the VOS order. Never has the woman seen the man superficially looks fine, however, if you remember the woman is now the object and we can illustrate this by replacing them the object with a pronoun with a case mark pronoun and then you can clearly see that never has her seen he is totally impossible. Now the fifth ordering pattern OS-V is normally not used in present day English. The woman, the man saw, however, there are cases of object fronting where the subject is case marked, the subject has to be a pronoun. So something like the woman he saw is possible, but as you see the subject is now a pronoun which is case marked. And finally, the OVS word order is impossible. Again, you would first of all see, oh, the woman saw the man is possible, but however, this would be an SVO example. But with the woman as the object, it is of course impossible. As you can see, if you replace it by a pronoun, her saw he is clearly impossible. Now what do we do with these findings? Well, we could say that in present day English declarative sentences, the overwhelming majority of the sentences exhibits the SVO word order, that is the first type. Thus present day English is an SVO language. And this can easily be supported by the analysis of English text corpora. However, as we will see later, we have to be careful here. Now over and above the basic word order patterns, there are a number of so-called head modifier constructions whose internal ordering is highly revealing with regard to the basic configuration of a language. The typologist Joseph Greenberg found out in the middle of the 20th century that there are typical correlations between the order of the basic functional elements like subject verb object and these head modifier patterns. So let's look at such head modifier relationships in more detail. Now of course, if you look at them, you have two possibilities. The head can precede the modifier or the modifier can precede the head. Now here are some examples. Probably the most well-known head modifier construction is the verb object construction. Since verbs determine the choice and depending on the language, the case of their objects, they constitute the heads in such constructions and their objects are the modifiers. Well, here are two examples whereas in present day English, the verb always precedes the object. So you could say something like to eat rice is one of my goals today. In Japanese, the object that is the modifier precedes its head. Kome o tabe. Here is another example. The relationship between nouns and adjectives. Nouns determine the choice, maybe the gender and the case of their adjectives. So nouns are clearly the heads in such constructions and adjectives, the modifiers. Now let's look at English. Well, here the situation is a little bit difficult. We have exceptional constructions where the head precedes the modifier as in the president elect. However, you would agree with me that the majority of constructions of this type have the adjective, that is the modifier in the first position, that is a modifier head construction. In Japanese, the situation is clear. Okinawan, the big book, is clearly organized as a modifier head pattern. So in English here, this is slightly problematic. Another well-known head modifier pattern concerns ad positions. But what are ad positions? Well, ad positions, well the term ad position is a head term for, on the one hand, prepositions, where the ad position precedes its noun phrase, or post positions where the ad position follows its noun phrase. Now obviously, the ad position is always the head of such constructions because again, depending on the language, it determines the choice and maybe the case of the noun phrase that has to follow. So ad positions are heads. Well and how is this organized in English and Japanese? Well in English clearly we have prepositions only in the book. So the preposition, the ad positional type precedes its modifier and in Japanese it's the other way around, hongo nakani, where the noun phrase, the modifier precedes its head so we have post positions in Japanese. Now the typologist, Joseph Greenberg, as I already mentioned, found out that there are typical correlations between the basic word order, S-V-O-S-O-V-V-S-O, etc. And these head modifier patterns. For example, he found out by investigating a large number of languages that S-O-V languages typically have modifier head patterns. So these are the patterns that are used in S-O-V languages. Whereas languages where either the verb precedes is at the beginning of a sentence or languages like S-V-O typically have head modifier patterns. So these are then the ideal correlations between the basic word order and the organization of heads and modifiers. Well let's look at the languages that we are interested in. Here is English. Now English is clearly a head modifier language. The verb precedes its object. English has prepositions. The adjectival parameter is a little bit problematic. We have modifier head constructions in things like the big book, but we also have adjectival constructions where the adjective follows the noun as in the president elect. But the majority of the ordering patterns is head modifier. Now the other way around, Japanese is an example. In Japanese we have modifier head patterns very clearly. So Japanese would be then an S-O-V language whereas English is almost exclusively S-V-O. Sometimes there are languages that represent both. For example in German we find both patterns. Verb constructions in subordinate clauses and verb object constructions in main clauses. We have adjectives that precede their heads, but we also have prepositions and post positions in constructions like in dem Buch we have a preposition and meiner Meinung nach we have a post position. So German is obviously a mixed type language. Another language which is a little bit peculiar is Persian. Now Persian has a strict S-O-V order, but prepositions. So despite the formal clarity of basic word order patterns and head modifier ordering languages are often not that well organized and are open to exceptions. Well and there are further problems. In specific texts, whether spoken or written, we may find that the basic word order of a language is much less clear than elsewhere. Suppose you had to work out the basic word order of present day English on the basis of this text. What would it be? Well this text of course is part of a famous song so let's listen first. Okay here we go. A wonderful song I think, well but let's now concentrate on linguistics again. So I suggest you stop the e-lecture here and try an analysis, a functional analysis in terms of subject, verb, object, adverbial and complement. So are you ready? Here are the results. Now in the first sentence we clearly have an S-V-O structure. The verb reaching however is non-finite but that's the freedom of the writer of the lyrics. Night's in white, set in, never reached or reaching the end. Then we have an object, fronted structure, letters with an internal relative clause. Never meaning to send and there's no subject. So an object verb structure. Beauty I'd always missed is clearly object fronting. The object beauty precedes the subject I and then we have the verb and some adverbials and the final line what the truth is is clearly the object. It is an object clause, I is the subject and can't say the verb so here are the ordering patterns. Well what do these patterns suggest? Is English then a modifier head structure language where the object precedes the verb? Well probably not. But what I wanted to illustrate with this is that we have to be very careful with the choice of data if we want to establish the basic word order of a language. Now let's summarize. The syntactic classification of languages is mainly based on the sequence of the functional elements of clause structure in declarative sentences. That is on the basis of subject, verb and object. Since most languages under certain circumstances may deviate from their basic word orders and allow alternatives for example object fronting in present day English, additional ordering patterns may provide further information. The illustration and exemplification of the way languages arrange their central functional elements has been the goal of this e-lecture. I hope I could help you a little bit on that.