This paper proposes that the potential conflict arising from the areal distribution of a right-branching (VO) pattern encountering the area of a left-branching (OV) pattern is often resolved by the creation of an intersection zone which accommodates to both patterns by a simultaneous fluctuation between, or a merger of, the two patterns. The discussion is restricted here both in domain (adpositions) and area (the Middle East). Languages of this area group into three adpositional zones: postpositional, prepositional, and an intersection zone of mixed typology. The latter exhibits A) a split pattern, with both prepositions and postpositions; B) a merger of the two types into one hybridized pattern framing the head (circumpositions); or C) an assortment of patterns (prepositions, postpositions, circumpositions, and doublets or alternating forms). I also demonstrate that in the areas sandwiched between, and partially overlapping with, the postpositional zone (Turkic, Armenian, Caucasian, Indic) and the prepositional zone (Semitic), we find Iranian languages that are postpositional in the north, prepositional in the south, and of mixed adpositional typology in the central areas. In the east, we also find mixed typology in Nuristani languages.
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Case in Iranian
WOWA — Word Order in Western Asia
The focus on Western Asia is motivated by an overarching research interest in the areal diffusion of word order regularities; specifically, we investigate the respective impact of inheritance (the genetic affiliation of the languages concerned, e.g. Turkic, Semitic, etc.) and the impact of neighbouring languages, related or not, in shaping word order in usage. In addition, we address the issue of which aspects of word order are stable within a particular doculect, and which display corpus-internal variability.
More generally, this is connected to the issue of integrating variation into typology. Finally, WOWA is the only cross-linguistic data-base of its type that includes exclusively spoken language, and thus provides an important corrective to much ongoing work in corpus-based typology, which is still largely based on written language.