Word Order Variation: Semitic, Turkic and Indo-European Languages in Contact

Investigating empirical material, the present volume examines the idea of its contact-induced origin by combining various languages from inside and outside this contact area: the Greek variety Romeyka; Indic Domari; Iranic Balochi, Kurdish, Middle Persian, Parthian, Bactrian and Sogdian; Nilotic Maa; Semitic Arabic and Aramaic; Siberian and Iran-Turkic. The contributors investigate word order variation of transitive, ditransitive, and copula structures as well as intransitives with Targets. Their analyses highlight the relevance of grammatical, discourse-pragmatic, and cognitive principles. The volume highlights the importance of Target structures for linguistic theory by offering new perspectives and will be of interest to typologists and linguists interested in word order variation and information structure.