On the Evolution of Word Order

Abstract

Most natural languages have a predominant or fixed word order. For example in English the word order is usually Subject-Verb-Object. This work attempts to explain this phenomenon as well as other typological findings regarding word order from a functional perspective. In particular, we examine whether fixed word order provides a functional advantage, explaining why these languages are prevalent. To this end, we consider an evolutionary model of language and demonstrate, both theoretically and using genetic algorithms, that a language with a fixed word order is optimal. We also show that adding information to the sentence, such as case markers and noun-verb distinction, reduces the need for fixed word order, in accordance with the typological findings.