Swap distance minimization shapes the order of subject, object and verb in languages of the world
Jairo Rios-El-Yazidi, Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho
cs.CL physics.soc-ph
Abstract
Languages of the world vary concerning the order of subject, object and verb. The most frequent dominant orders are SOV and SVO, and researchers have tailored models to this fact. However, there are still languages whose dominant order does not conform to these expectations or even lack a dominant order. Here we show that across linguistic families and macroareas, word order variation within languages is shaped by the principle of swap distance minimization even when the dominant order is not SOV/SVO and even when a dominant order is lacking.
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Classified with taxonomy v2 on Wed, 2 Sept 2026.