Word order in Cherokee: Information structure, thematic structure, and variability

Although Cherokee is known to show highly flexible clausal word order, the principles that predict speakers' preferences among possible orders are not extensively described. This article presents a new description of the grammatical properties that predict clausal word order in spoken Cherokee, based on a corpus study of word-order variation. Our results show that the placement of nominal expressions relative to verbs, and the relative order of nominal expressions within a clause, are determined in a probabilistic way by the cumulative interaction of several factors: REFERENTIAL ACCESSIBILITY, CONTRAST, AND THEMATIC ROLE. The findings suggest that thematic properties may have a greater word-order role than generally assumed in languages with nonconfigurational and/or polysynthetic properties.