[JimSEA]

This interested me because of the difficulty I had in learning Thai. English is, of course, a SVO language and Thai is a SOV language. That in combination with the tonal nature of Thai in determining meanings.

[UCANSEE2]

“...demonstrating that when the computational load on the brain is lightened.”

And how or why does that exactly happen ?

If it leads to more complex grammatical structures, would that increase the computational load on the brain ?

(just saying that strained my brain)

[Zeneta]

No thangs up in dis biatch found fo’ There is languages dat place tha verb between tha subject n’ tha object (SVO order — Subject/ Verb/ Object) while others place it all up in tha end of tha trio (SOV order). Da order of these elements, far from bein purely decorative, influences efficiency of expression. I aint talkin’ bout chicken n’ gravy biatch fo’ realz. A crew from SISSAz Language, Cognizzle n’ Development Lab (along wit two Iranian institutions) studied tha mechanizzle dat controls tha transizzle from tha SOV form, considered tha “basic” order by scientists, ta tha SVO order while tha language is evolving, demonstratin dat when tha computationizzle load on tha dome is lightened, humans chizzle mo’ efficient systemz of communication which encourage tha use of mo’ complex grammatical structures..

[BenLurkin]

Interesting

[FredZarguna]

I'm not really convinced that the experiment here strengthens, let alone proves the hypothesis. If the predefined lexicon were developed by SVO speakers, it's conceivable that they introduced a bias into the lexicon, that would have forced -- or at least pushed -- communicants in the direction of SVO.

Let's repeat the experiment, with a lexicon developed by an SOV speaker, taught by SOV speakers, to SOV speakers, and see what happens, shall we?

Additionally, this statement in the hypothesis is incorrect:

We started from the hypothesis that as languages change, they move towards greater efficiency of expression and along the way tend to grammaticalize more and more, that is, sentences can contain more complex structures.

In the evolution of English from root Germanic languages, grammaticalization decreased. Verb forms are dramatically simpler in English, the definite article became a single word, and the indefinite articles obtain entirely from stylistic considerations without any regard for grammar [except pluralization.] The case system is entirely gone except for possession, the case system for pronouns is mostly gone, and even the structural distinctions between adverbs and adjectives is disappearing.

None of this appears to have decreased the expressive power of English, nor the ability to construct elaborate semantic structures vis-à-vis its linguistic origins.

[LadyDoc]

What about languages that go verb subject object? Like Tagolog?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.

-Mark Twain

[Lurker]

Etymology ping. I know you’re long gone, but...

L