Project
This database is an outcome of the project entitled Consequences of Head Argument Order for Syntax (or CHAOS for short), funded by the German Research Association (DFG) from 2021 to 2025. The project is part of the Collaborative Research Centre 1287 - Limits of Variability in Language: Cognitive, Computational, and Grammatical Aspects (CRC1287) at the University of Potsdam. It was initiated by Prof. Gisbert Fanselow (1959-2022) and combines aspects of syntax, typology, and language description. In 2024, Prof. Martin Salzmann became the new PI of the project.
The project tests the hypothesis that there are systematic syntactic differences between (S)VO and (S)OV languages that go beyond further laws of linearization for heads and their arguments. The aim of the project was also to determine whether pertinent typological generalizations are best captured via the ordering of verb and object (OV / VO) or via alternative features, such as the position of the subject. For this purpose, extensive comparative data was collected systematically in a global sample of 40 languages. The data were collected with the help of an extensive questionnaire that was to a large extent designed by Prof. Fanselow and later extended by Andreas Hölzl, Nina Adam, and Andreas Pregla. Version 5.0 of the questionnaire is available on this homepage. This database makes all of the data available to the general public.