The limits of freedom: A permutational test in a free word order language

Syntactic investigations of the so called ‘free word order’ languages typically focus on a small set of non-canonical orderings within a given compositional meaning that are attributed either to a single displacement operation (e.g. ‘left-branch extraction’) or some other factor (e.g. information structure). An empirical assessment of acceptability patterns over the full set of orderings available within the space of permutational possibilities is rarely undertaken on a non-trivial scale; consequently, the full extent of actual word order flexibility available to the speakers of these languages is difficult to estimate. In this study, using the factorial methodology of experimental syntax, we report the results of a sentence acceptability judgment task in Serbo-Croatian which includes a full set of permutations over a five-word kernel. Analyses of variance in the collected patterns of acceptability data permit one to quantitatively assess the ‘weight’ or impact of each displacement and their combinations on acceptability of respective permutational variants. They also suggest that despite having to deal with an (expectedly) larger spectrum of acceptable permutational variants, speakers of Serbo-Croatian are sensitive to abstract structural properties such as constituency, special status of clausal left-periphery as well as distinct origin of particular displacement types. We discuss some methodological aspects of larger-scale permutational studies and their potential benefits as a fine-tuned instrument for probing into the phenomenon of free word order at the level of native speakers’ intuitions.