Finding Order in the Chaos: Word Order Variations in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic

Abstract

In the past, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (JBA) has been assumed to have a free word order. However, languages with truly free word orders are rare, if they exist at all. In this study, I analyze and explain word order variations that occur in JBA. I conduct a corpus-based study of JBA using the third chapter of the Babylonian Talmudic tractate Ta’anit. I create a database, recording all the phrases that contain a verb and an overt pronominal subject or object, and the order in which these three constituents appear. It emerges that V(S)(O) is the most common word order in JBA, and is likely the basic word order. Non verb-initial word orders are likely due to the effects of information structure, specifically the fronting of topicalized and focalized constituents. The presence of VOS word order is due to grammatical constraints in the language. This research contributes to the body of knowledge about word orders of Aramaic dialects. It also contributes to the typological study of the effects of information structure on word order variations.