Order in Minimalism: Abductive Reasoning

Abstract

The paper addresses one of the most important topics of minimalism – word order. Progress in contemporary modern linguistics is characterized by the “tacit” necessity to involve in linguis-tic theory various concepts such as rules (cf. phrasal vs transformational), empty categories vs the application of MOVEα, heads vs complements etc. which form the spine of linguistic thought. The common trait of these tacit concepts is word order which represents/is represented by linearization. Concepts in this field (e.g. occurrence, position) were established by famous logicians, such as Quine, Carnap meeting with scant interest from prewar Czech linguistics, and even linguists in Europe and the US. Progress in the study of word order is driven by the idea of the dominance of a certain ordering. The ordering subject-predicate-object is considered a basic order in modern linguistics. Why? The answer, I believe can be found in the hypotheses presented below.

(Non-peer-reviewed essay on the occasion of Ladislav Tondl's 90th birthday.)