VSO.

[And Rosta <cbmvax!uunet!UCL.AC.UK!pucc.PRINCETON.EDU!ucleaar>]

Mark Shoulson writes:
    >Using "VSO" form, {citka le nanmu le cripu}, is quite
    >grammatical, but poses a different problem. By current
    >usage, since VSO is not a common word-order in many
    >languages, the "selbri-first" word-order is reserved for
    >"observative" sentences--ones with the x1 place ellipsized.
    >Thus, the above sentence would probably be understood to
    >mean "(something) eats the man ??? the bridge"--since
    >"citka" only has 2 places, it would be unlear how the
    >bridge related to it all.
    >In private e-mail, jimc and I have discovered that we both
    >would prefer to allow VSO to enjoy the same treatment as
    >anything else, making it more consistent, as well as
    >easier to use VSO (which we both seem to like). What are
    >everyone's opinions?
First of all, as you know, statistics concerning the ordering
of clause-structure are highly unreliable, because a category
for free word-order usually isn't recognized, so, for instance,
Latin comes out as SOV. Secondly, though less common than SVO
and SOV, VSO isn't at all uncommon. It's VOS, OVS and OSV that
are the shy ones. Thirdly, VSO (or VOS) is *the* simplest and
most consistent of the orders, because of such a language -
but not of the others - one can make the simple generalization
that 'heads always precede their dependents'. Agreed, the
verb is foregrounded, but in any order some element will be
foregrounded.

I personally consider a free-word-order, unmarked-VSO-order,
split-intransitive-case language a very sexy combo, albeit a
rather kinky one by the standards of esperantoid tongues.

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And.