page_title: Verb-initial word order
section_title: Right-hand specifier
hierarchical_section_title: Verb-initial word order / Theoretical approaches / Generative approach / Right-hand specifier
caption_attribution_description: English: Derivation of VOS word order with subject movement in a rightward specifier theory.
context_page_description: In syntax, verb-initial word order is a word order in which the verb appears before the subject and the object. In the more narrow sense, this term is used specifically to describe the word order of V1 languages. V1 clauses only occur in V1 languages and other languages with a dominant V1 order displaying other properties that correlate with verb-initiality and that are crucial to many analyses of V1. V1 languages are estimated to make up 12-19% of the world’s languages.
  V1 languages constitute a diverse group from different language families. They include Berber, Biu-Mandara, Surmic, and Nilo-Saharan languages in Africa; Celtic languages in Europe; Mayan, and Oto-Manguean languages in North and Central America; Salish, Wakashan, and Tsimshiani languages in North America; Arawakan languages in South America; Austronesian languages in Southeast Asia. Some languages are strictly VSO, for example Q’anjob’al. Others are strictly VOS, for example Malagasy. Many alternate between VSO and VOS, an example being Ojibwe.
context_section_description: Some researchers have proposed deriving verb-initial word order by modifying the basic X-bar structure to permit right ward specifiers.  This analysis has been particularly influential for Mayan languages, notably by Judith Aissen for Tzotzil.  This is notable because it goes against standard X-bar theory and modern Minimalist theories where all specifiers are required to be leftward.
  The difference between VSO and VOS word orders in a right-hand specifier theory is accomplished via a combination of controlling which specifiers are right-ward and controlling which argument(s) moves.  VOS word can be derived from the base positions of a VP with a right-specifier (note that the majority of this literature assumes the VP-Internal hypothesis).  From the base position, VOS can also be derived by moving the subject up to any right-specifier position (e.g. the specifier of IP).
  VSO word order is derived from the same base order.  The object then moves to a right-specifier position above the VP (the specific landing site will vary from language to language).
  Movement of either the subject or object arguments was originally motivated by positing an EPP feature on the landing site.  Modern analyses are more likely to argue that movement is motivated by a need to give the argument case or for purposes of information structure.
caption: Derivation of VOS word order with subject movement in a rightward specifier theory.
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