Phonological Evidence for the Syntax of VOS and SVO in Huave

Abstract:

San Mateo Huave (SMH) permits both SVO and VOS word orders, each of which is associated with a different set of phonological properties. First, H-tone never spreads from a preverbal subject to a verb, but very consistently spreads from a verb to a postverbal subject. Second, postverbal subjects are frequently preceded by a ‘mystery vowel’ (/a/ or /e/). I propose that both of these contrasts are reflexes of a basic syntactic distinction: Preverbal subjects are structurally higher than postverbal subjects in SMH (in Spec,CP instead of internal to TP).