From V-O-S to S-V-O Language?: A Diachronic Study on Word-order Typology of Minangkabaunese

Abstract

Recent studies on grammatical typology of Minangkabaunese claim that: (i) the basic grammatical constructions of Minangkabaunese have the S-V-O word-order with the variation V-O-S and O-S-V; (ii) the S-V-O word-order is the highest degree of acceptability for formal language and commonly used by youngeducated speakers; (iii) the V-O-S word-order is acceptable in old-stylistic constructions and frequently used by native speakers in informal speech events; and (iii) the O-S-V word order, however, is assigned as the topicalization construction; it is not the basic clause construction, then. A question then rises up: how do the variations of the word-order come up? The answer for this basic question needs further typological analyses. Among the others, the diachronic studies are relevant to do in order that the progress and/or change of wordorder typology can be argumentatively explored. This paper particularly discusses a preliminary-diachronic study on word-order typology of Minangkabaunese. The main questions answered in this paper is that “how does Minangkabaunese have S-V-O, V-S-O, and O-S-V word-order typology?” This study was a descriptivequalitative one which was operationally conducted as a field research and in a library study. The data in the forms of clausal and syntactical (grammatical) constructions were collected through participant observation, semi-structural interview, distributing questionnaire, and having note-taking. The analysis results reveal that the S-V-O word-order is more basic in modern-formal Minangkabaunese, meanwhile the V-O-S word-order are natively preferred in old-stylistic constructions and in casual-informal speech events. It may be diachronically assumed that Minangkabaunese is in the evolutionary progress from V-O-S to S-V-O language; it was originally V-O-S language in nature, then it gradually becomes S-V-O in modern style.