Continuous and discontinuous nominal expressions in flexible (or “free”) word order languages: Patterns and correlates

1 Introduction

This paper discusses word order patterns of complex (i.e. multi-word) nominal expressions in flexible word order languages (also referred to as “free word order” or “non-configurational” languages), as well as any functional or other correlates that can be associated with the different ordering patterns. While it seems that most languages around the world allow for the permutation of main constituents under specific conditions, flexible word order languages, well-known especially from the Australian continent, also show considerable variability with regard to word order within nominal expressions (e.g. Hale 1983; Heath 1986; Austin & Bresnan 1996; Louagie & Verstraete 2016). This variability involves both flexible ordering when the elements in question are placed in adjacency (i.e. when we are dealing with “continuous nominal expressions”) and discontinuous placement (i.e. the phenomenon of “discontinuous nominal expressions” or, traditionally, “discontinuous NPs”). Notably, in these languages, such alternative ordering patterns do not seem to necessarily or obviously affect either the unit-hood of the nominal expression in question or internal “headedness” relations. While this ordering flexibility is relatively well-known, a study that comprehensively surveys both continuous and discontinuous patterns as well as any functional or other correlates is lacking so far.

This paper thus examines syntagmatic variation in languages that push the ordinary boundaries of word order flexibility. Discontinuous placement is perhaps the most radical instantiation of this flexibility and is probably the typologically most unusual of the features associated with the label of “non-configurationality”. I will focus not only on discontinuity in this paper, however, but also spend some time on continuity, as adjacent ordering also shows greater flexibility in the languages discussed here in comparison to, e.g. English or French, with their much more tightly structured phrasal syntagms. Throughout the paper, the focus is on the ordering of non-phrasal elements, as phrasal structures inside complex nominal expressions (e.g. adnominal possessor phrases or relative clauses) generally seem to enjoy considerable word order freedom, whether or not a language otherwise displays particularly flexible word order. The non-phrasal elements in question are, in particular, “nominals”, which may be entity- and/or property-denoting, given the absence of a clear-cut noun-adjective distinction in the languages at issue here. This last point is a crucial part in accounting for the flexibility found, as will be outlined in Section 2. Besides nominal elements, I also take into account the usual other types of non-phrasal elements figuring in nominal expressions, such as demonstratives, quantifiers and numerals.

Languages for which it has been claimed that word order variation in complex nominal expressions does not necessarily affect their unit-hood or “headedness” relations include at least the 29 Australian languages listed as showing syntactically “unrestricted” word order flexibility in Louagie and Verstraete (2016: 63–64, Table B-1 (iii)). Further languages that are relevant in the context of this paper are those categorised by Louagie and Verstraete as showing “flexibility of adjective-like modifiers” while “determining elements [are] fixed at one edge” (Louagie & Verstraete 2016, Table B-1 (iic)) and at least some of the 18 languages for which the primary source indicates that flexibility is “restricted in frequency” (Louagie & Verstraete 2016, Table B-1 (iia)). With regard to the last-mentioned category, note that deviations from the default order seem to be comparatively infrequent in most, if not all, languages. Thus, this category reflects perhaps not so much a cross-linguistic difference, but rather whether or not an author comments on frequency. Furthermore, several other Australian languages mentioned in Louagie and Verstraete (2016) qualify, even though they are not categorised there as showing “flexible” word order, including Gooniyandi ^[1] (McGregor 1990, McGregor 1997), Nunggubuyu (Heath 1986), and possibly also Tiwi (Lee 1987). The reason is that, whenever the primary source mentions any “functional” correlate as influencing ordering, the language is excluded from the category of “flexibility” in Louagie and Verstraete’s (2016) categorisation. A “functional” correlate may involve, e.g. an information-structural factor such as some sort of a focus interpretation. I will argue in this paper that factors of this sort play a role in most cases where ordering deviates from the default. Therefore, the fact that information-structural or other correlates can be identified should not be taken as a reason for excluding languages from categorisations such as “flexible word order”, if this label is understood to be a syntactic one.

Outside of the Australian continent, a language that also shows a significant degree of syntagmatic flexibility within nominal expressions as well as other properties that have been associated with the label “non-configurationality” is Vedic Sanskrit (Reinöhl 2016: 33–42), the oldest attested variety of Indo-Aryan. Accordingly, this language is also included in the present study. Note that the selection of languages is not so much due to this kind of flexibility only being attested here, but rather to the fact that we are dealing with a topic still very much in need of exploration. I hence focus on languages for which this phenomenon has already been studied in some detail, which applies in particular to certain Australian languages, given their central role in the history of the non-configurationality debate.

While the number of potentially relevant languages is significant, this paper is in part exploratory and no attempt has been made to explicitly discuss all of the above-mentioned Australian languages. Determinants of main constituent order have received some attention for Australian languages (see Simpson & Mushin 2008: 26–27 for references) and for Vedic (e.g. Delbrück 1878; contributions in Hock 1991; Schäufele 1991b; Lühr 2015), but ordering within nominal expressions has been the primary focus of few publications. Thus, this study presents a first qualitative survey of patterns and correlates, drawing particularly on McGregor (1990, 1997) on Gooniyandi and Schultze-Berndt & Simard (2012) on Jaminjung. Since Vedic Sanskrit is the only language outside of Australia included in this study, and since its nominal syntax has not attracted much attention, this paper also includes a fair number of Vedic examples. These stem predominantly from a study of ca. 1000 clauses from the early prose text Maitrāyaṇī Saṁhitā (around 900 BC, Amano 2009: 1) analysed for this paper, a commentary of early Hindu ritual practices (see Acknowledgements).

Note that the claims in the present paper do not, or do not necessarily, extend to other Australian languages outside of the ones mentioned, nor to other early varieties of Indo-European besides Vedic Sanskrit. The latter has to do with the fact that most early representatives of Indo-European (e.g. Ancient Greek or Latin) show more syntactically rigid or “phrasal” nominal expressions, which can be linked to the existence of grammaticalised adnominal function words such as articles or adpositions (Himmelmann 1997; Reinöhl 2016). ^[2]

The evidence discussed in this paper, first with regard to continuity (Section 3) and then to discontinuity (Section 4), suggests that there are several cross-linguistic similarities between word order patterns as well as their correlates. In Section 3, I argue that in most, if not all, languages, a particular continuous order is the default, which in numerous languages appears to be primarily governed by a functional template. Such functional templates contain slots for, e.g. “qualifying”, “classifying”, “entity-denoting” and other roles (McGregor 1990), which can be flexibly occupied by elements, provided they are semantically compatible. Deviations from the default while maintaining continuity can be associated with different sorts of focus interpretations or with heaviness effects. In Section 4, I identify three types of discontinuity. In “Left-Edge Discontinuity”, the most widespread one across the languages studied here, an element belonging to a complex nominal expression is placed at or near the left edge of the clause, while the other element(s) follow(s) in third position or later. In “Wackernagel Pronoun Discontinuity”, a pronominal element that is part of a complex nominal expression is placed in 2nd (“Wackernagel”) position and thus away from the other element(s) it forms an expression with. “Conjunction-related Discontinuity”, specific to Vedic, involves conjunctions separating elements forming a complex expression. As with deviations from the default order while maintaining continuity, an important cross-linguistic correlate of discontinuous patterns is focus interpretations, in particular in the case of Left-Edge Discontinuity. Section 5 at the end of this paper discusses in more detail the different types of focus interpretations associated with the various non-default word order patterns. Throughout the paper, I highlight how language-specific characteristics, such as the behaviour of 2nd position elements, act as constraints on forms and functions. The aim is to tease out which aspects are particular to language, language family or area, and which ones may be cross-linguistically common. In a few cases, genre effects will be mentioned, such as regarding specifics of the historical Vedic corpus in comparison to the different types of fieldwork data collected for the Australian languages.

2 Identifying complex nominal expressions in flexible word order languages

Before examining the different patterns and their correlates, it is necessary to discuss whether and how it is possible to identify complex nominal expressions in flexible word order languages, a point less than straightforward given the formal characteristics of such languages.

I assume in this paper, in line with numerous studies since Hale (1983), that two or more elements may form a complex nominal expression despite a lack of the obligatory syntactic integration that is normally associated with the label “noun phrase”. Note that, since the languages discussed here lack such integration, the term “noun phrase” is avoided in this paper following Himmelmann (1997), and preference is given to “nominal expression”, which is neutral with regard to whether or not an expression is phrasally structured. The justification for assuming that unit-hood as a (complex) nominal expression is indeed a relevant category in the languages at issue here is that there are clear differences between cases where elements work together in the same utterance to identify a participant or establish a concept, and cases where they do not, even if they share the exact same morphological marking. ^[3] In cases where several elements work together in that way, we find recurring ordering patterns and recurring correlates, as will be discussed in Sections 3–5.

Even when there is a lack of formal clues, Himmelmann (1997: 117–119) argues, based on work by John Du Bois and Sandra Thompson, that a complex nominal expression can be identified as such on the grounds of discourse-referential uses. These include “tracking” uses of discourse participants (roughly, “referential” uses) as well as “non-tracking” uses (often called “non-referential” uses) as found, e.g. in predicative function. Two or more elements that together establish a concept, whether appearing in a “tracking” or “non-tracking” use, and show some formally nominal properties, are considered to form one complex nominal expression. This discourse-based understanding is adopted here.

However, it is important to note that the lack of formal clues often makes it difficult to decide in practice whether we are dealing with a real nominal expression in a discourse-functional sense. The challenge of deciding whether nominals form a complex expression or not has been addressed in Hale (1983) for Warlpiri (Pama-Nyungan). Hale, focusing on discontinuous cases, discusses the difference between what he calls “merged” and “unmerged” interpretations:

… On one interpretation, the expression wiri-ngki (big-erg) is taken as a modifier of maliki-rli (dog-erg), forming with it a unit expression … This is the ‘merged’ interpretation. … On another interpretation …, wiri-ngki is simply predicated of maliki-rli. (Hale 1983: 38)

The reasons why it can be difficult to decide whether elements form one nominal expression, i.e. allow for a merged interpretation, include word order flexibility, the absence of a clear-cut noun-adjective distinction, as well as the ubiquitous use of nominal forms in a wide range of grammatical roles. ^[5] The remainder of this section discusses the delimitation of real nominal expressions from apparent ones in more detail, given the discourse-functional understanding adopted above (see Reinöhl To appear, for a more detailed discussion).

First of all, cases where the elements in question are not found within the same “domain” are excluded from consideration (see Schultze-Berndt & Simard 2012). For instance, free topics in the left periphery preceding a clause are not considered to form complex expressions with nominals inside the clause, and the same applies to nominals in the right periphery, e.g. afterthoughts or right dislocations. ^[6] A problem is, of course, that it can be difficult to establish domain boundaries in flexible word order languages if one relies solely on syntactic evidence, in particular when dealing with discontinuous cases. ^[7]

In order to identify domain boundaries, Schultze-Berndt & Simard (2012) argue for Jaminjung that the prosodic domain of the “intonation phrase”, intermediate between prosodic word and intonation unit, delimits boundaries within which elements form complex expressions, whether continuous or discontinuous. The importance of prosodic phrasing for delimiting information units has long been recognised, going back to work for instance by Chafe (e.g. 1994). Ex. (2) from Jaminjung illustrates a discontinuous nominal expression found inside an intonation phrase. The authors point out that the dog was already introduced into the conversation and is now referred to more specifically as ‘a dangerous dog’. An interpretation of ‘fierce’ or ‘dog’ as, e.g. a free topic or an afterthought, seems implausible in this context. By contrast, ex. (3) does not involve one complex expression, but two separate ones distributed across two intonation phrases, as shown by the backslash \. The second expression serves as an afterthought, adding information on the already introduced referent.

McGregor (1997) on Gooniyandi also takes into account prosodic phrasing (marked by slashes). The next example illustrates a right dislocation where a referent is at first expressed only pronominally, while lexical information is provided later in the following prosodic unit (cf. also Baker & Mushin 2008: 10–11): ^[8]

Examples of nominals in the left periphery include, as already mentioned, free topics as illustrated in ex. (5) from Jaminjung; in this case, the authors make reference to the pitch contour to underscore their analysis.

Another type that has been discussed in the literature (and which is even considered synonymous with discontinuity in Fanselow & Féry 2006: 2, fn.1) is split topicalisation. Here, the elements involved bear different information-structural roles and do not together identify one concept, and they are realised in separate prosodic domains, e.g. German Zeitungenliest er nur eine, die TAZ (‘As for newspapers, he only reads one, the TAZ’ (quoted from Fanselow & Ćavar in Schultze-Berndt & Simard 2012: 1047). Therefore, this type is also excluded here as only apparently involving complex nominal expressions following Schultze-Berndt & Simard (2012: 1047–1048).

Prosodic analysis is still somewhat rare for Australian languages, and there is of course no recorded evidence available for Vedic Sanskrit. However, certain prosodic clues make it possible to delimit a core domain in Vedic, as well, at least in certain clause types (see Reinöhl To appear). The left domain boundary is often clearly delimited by unaccented and/or accented Wackernagel elements. These require a single preceding, accented word as their host, which in turn marks the left clausal edge. At the right edge, we normally find the finite verb, which is unaccented in main clauses, carrying the lowest pitch sentence-finally. ^[9] The following example illustrates a case where two nominals follow the finite verb. While sharing the same inflectional marks, ádābhyāḥ likely functions as an afterthought, rather than forming a discontinuous nominal expression with bṛhadúkṣaḥ marútaḥ viśvávedasaḥ (see remarks in Delbrück 1878; Staal 1967; Schäufele 1991b). ^[10]

Given the certain degree of ordering flexibility, it is of course hard to say whether all such cases in Vedic should indeed be discarded as examples of a discontinuous nominal expression or not. Ultimately, it has to be discourse criteria that give the answer, rather than formal indications, in order to avoid circularity. However, discourse criteria are not always applicable, as in the case of ritual formulas, and only certain text portions involve the kind of narrative structure that can guide one’s assessment of information structure and textual coherence. Therefore, it seems advisable to err on the conservative side and exclude such cases – i.e. where nominals seem distributed over separate domains judging by word order – on principle.

Besides excluding cases where elements are not found in the same domain, it is important to note that nominals with the same morphological marking (if any) do not have to form one expression even when found inside one domain. In fact, this is possibly an even more important point to make, as these cases are harder to spot, with elements often appearing side by side and showing the same morphology. For instance, secondary predicates have been identified in previous studies as being easily mistaken for attributes in flexible word order languages, for instance McGregor (1997: 102–103), Schultze-Berndt & Simard (2012: 1028–1030); for a study focusing on secondary predicates in an Australian language see Simpson (2006b) on Warlpiri. Secondary predicates are not part of a nominal expression whose referent they add information about, but constitute an additional predicate beside the main predicate, temporally overlapping with the latter (cf. Himmelmann & Schultze-Berndt 2006). Consider the following example from Jaminjung (see Schultze-Berndt & Simard 2012: 1028–1030 for discussion):

Vedic Sanskrit also frequently employs nominal elements as secondary predicates, in particular participles (see Casaretto & Reinöhl In prep.). Additionally, predicates in main and subordinate (in particular, relative) clauses, as well as in complex converb expressions, are also frequently morphologically nominal in Vedic, all of which may easily be mistaken as forming complex expressions with a nominal in argument role, for instance (see Reinöhl To appear, for details).

The relevance of being strict about what it takes to form a real complex nominal expression is underscored by a count of examples in the Vedic prose corpus. The application of the discourse-functional understanding adopted here necessitates the exclusion of about two thirds of the sentences as not actually involving real complex nominal expressions. All of these contain two or more nominal elements with the same case, gender and number marking.

3 Continuity

Over the next two sections, it will become clear that motivations for deviations from the default order in continuity, on the one hand, and motivations for placing elements discontinuously, on the other hand, are partially similar. Nonetheless, relative order in continuity and the various patterns of discontinuity are not simply, or not obviously, part of the same larger phenomenon. Firstly, the basic principle that what belongs together functionally is placed together is not violated with non-default continuity, while it is violated in discontinuity. Secondly, it is not obvious whether relative ordering in continuity shares certain motivations with the same relative ordering in discontinuity. Thirdly, it has not yet been sufficiently explored how phrase-internal flexibility (as, for instance, in Tagalog, see Himmelmann 1997: 162; Shih & Zuraw 2017) compares to flexibility that occurs across a larger domain, i.e. discontinuity. For these reasons, discussions of continuous and discontinuous cases are kept separate for the purposes of this paper.

4 Discontinuity

Louagie & Verstraete (2016: 51) count 49 languages in their sample of 100 Australian languages for which some kind of “discontinuity” is an option, and this number may even be higher since discontinuity is not explicitly excluded for a number of the other languages. ^[16] In any case, there is a wealth of grammatical descriptions in which at least some examples are found. Several descriptions also contemplate conditioning factors, some of which are cited below. Importantly, however, not all descriptions of “discontinuity” in the literature fall under the definition adopted here.

“Discontinuity” is understood here as encompassing cases where two (or more) elements appear to form a complex expression while not being placed in juxtaposition, but where the latter would in principle be an alternative possibility, given changed information-structural conditions, for instance. If discontinuity was the only option, we would not be dealing with actual syntactic flexibility. I also exclude cases where it seems plausible to analyse the example as a case of another element “splitting” the complex nominal expression, rather than the members of the expression standing apart. An example from Vedic Sanskrit are cases where a “focus”-marking particle, which always attaches to the right of the host that it has scope over, is placed after an adnominal modifier and thus “splits” that modifier from its following head. Cases that look like they may not involve “real” complex nominal expressions are also strictly excluded, along the lines discussed in Section 2. Thus, for instance McGregor’s (1997) “Type B Discontinuity” is not discussed here, as it does not conform to the requirement of prosodic domain integrity. Also, any example type for which someone proposes some kind of “unmerged interpretation” in the sense of Hale’s (1983) understanding will not be considered either.

The following discussion is organised according to three distinct syntagmatic types of discontinuity. ^[17] These syntagmatic types show specific functional correlates, but no one-to-one correspondences (possibly with the exception of the minor Conjunction-related Discontinuity). All three types have been identified as discontinuity for at least one of the languages under investigation in previous studies, while not labelled in the same way. While examples for all types are attested for Vedic Sanskrit, the literature on Australian languages displays a strong focus on what is here labelled “Left-Edge Discontinuity”, which involves the placement of one element in a position at or near the left edge of the domain in question. An important difference between the more widely attested Left-Edge Discontinuity and the other two types is that whereas the former involves all kinds of elements, the latter are linked in different ways to the behaviour of specific function words. Wackernagel Pronoun Discontinuity involves the insertion of a pronoun in 2nd (“Wackernagel”) position, which forms a complex expression with elements elsewhere in the sentence. Conjunction-related Discontinuity involves the optional placement of conjunctions in between elements that form a complex expression. Whether further types should be added or whether one or more of the three types should be sub-divided is a question for further research; at this point, the different formal characteristics paired with their specific functional correlates motivate the tripartite categorisation adopted here.

As with continuous patterns, the comparison reveals that we find formal as well as functional similarities across the languages examined. In part, the findings corroborate ideas that deviations from the juxtaposed default often come with somehow informationally prominent interpretations, such as different types of focus marking. At the same time, however, there is also considerable variety in interpretations including the attestation of ones that are not informationally prominent in any obvious way.

5 A spotlight on focus interpretations

Different types of focus interpretations associated with non-default word order of nominal expressions are a thread running through the literature and through this paper. This section summarises the different uses encountered so far and goes into some more detail with regard to the types of focus interpretations that can be identified.

Summarising, we have seen analyses of focus interpretations of modifiers and of modified elements. The former seems the most frequent type across languages, and also the most frequent one in terms of token numbers within languages. Both focus interpretations of modifying and of modified elements occur in Vedic Sanskrit and in various Australian languages. These focus interpretations have been linked to a reversal of the default order in continuity, where the element drawn to the left bears the focus interpretation, as well as to Left-Edge Discontinuity, where focus interpretations are frequently associated with the initial element. In cases of Left-Edge Discontinuity, we have also seen focus readings associated with the element on the right, or with the utterance as a whole in “sentence-focus” interpretations.

A closer look at examples reveals that some of the focus interpretations found in the literature and in this paper involve a contrastive reading that invokes alternatives. An interpretation of contrast can be found with modifiers (e.g. ex. (29) ‘a dangerous dog’, ex. (30) ‘(in) that place’) or with modified elements (e.g. ex. (16) ‘four Brahmins’, ex. (32) ‘two fish’). As examples ex. (16) and ex. (32) illustrate, this contrastive interpretation is found both with reversed continuity and with discontinuity. In other cases, contrast does not seem to be involved, but rather newness, as with sentence-focus readings illustrated in ex. (34), ‘There comes a big boat with white people!’. Newness may also be involved in cases such as the Gooniyandi ex. (33), ‘A male river kangaroo _… ’ where the focus interpretation is said to be on the right-most element in modifying function. The notion of highlighting, in turn, seems orthogonal to contrast and newness, as it can be connected to contrastive interpretations as well as to sentence-focus interpretations, but perhaps not so clearly to the type illustrated by the Gooniyandi ex. (33).

The fact that different examples suggest that we are dealing with different types of focus interpretations fits squarely with the approach advocated by Matić & Wedgwood (2013) that “focus” is not a linguistic category in the sense of a stable form-function pairing. Instead, it is a label for a family of interpretations that involve notions including the ones just mentioned, which may be variously expressed by a range of structural patterns, not only cross-linguistically, but also within one and the same language. The formal means may include different types of word order patterns, but of course also other ones such as, e.g., prosodic cues or particles. At the same time, a specific structural pattern does not seem to be linked to only one specific information-structural interpretation.

That we are indeed dealing with a family of interpretations rather than with a monolithic concept becomes even clearer in a more detailed analysis. While several of the focus interpretations of the Vedic Sanskrit examples appear to involve contrast, they differ with regard to finer variables, such as whether a closed or open set of alternatives is involved (see Krifka 2008), and whether the example involves a semantic or an “identificational” focus interpretation (i.e. where a previously introduced discourse referent is picked out). Thus, ex. (43), ‘distribute all oblations at the same time’, can be said to involve an open (or less restricted) set of alternatives in comparison to ex. (44), where ‘unlimited (enlivenment)’ is contrasted only with the alternative ‘limited(ness)’.

While in ex. (43) and ex. (44) the modifier makes a semantic contribution, ex. (45) involves an “identificational” use where a referent (i.e. the ‘abode’) previously introduced is picked out by way of a reflexive pronoun in focus.

Note that in ex. (44) and ex. (45) we find not only Left-Edge Discontinuity, but also the “focus” particle evá (which attaches directly to the element that it has scope over, irrespective of absolute position). The question of the exact interpretational outcomes of such combined means of marking prominent (focus) information is subject to further research.

More research is needed to reach a deeper understanding of the range of focus interpretations associated with deviations from the default order in the languages investigated here. What does clearly emerge, however, is that deviations from the default, particularly changes of the default continuous order and Left-Edge Discontinuity, show a substantial correlation with the family of focus interpretations across languages.

6 Conclusion

This paper has examined continuous and discontinuous word order patterns of complex nominal expressions in flexible (or “free”) word order languages along with any information-structural and other correlates. While main constituent order in flexible word order languages has long attracted attention, the present paper is the first comprehensive cross-linguistic study that looks at both continuous and discontinuous patterns of complex nominal expressions. Important sources were McGregor’s work on continuous (1990) and discontinuous (1997) nominal expressions in Gooniyandi, Schultze-Berndt & Simard’s (2012) work on discontinuity in Jaminjung, the recent survey in Louagie & Verstraete (2016), and results from a corpus study of Vedic Sanskrit prose conducted for this paper. A further important starting point was the discussion in Schultze-Berndt & Simard (2012) and Reinöhl (To appear) about how to delimit “real” complex nominal expressions from “apparent” ones in the languages at issue here. Challenges in this regard are not only word order flexibility, but also weak or non-existent noun-adjective distinctions, and the ubiquitous use of nominals in a broad range of grammatical roles.

First of all, default word order in nominal expressions in numerous of the languages under discussion appears to be determined primarily by functional templates rather than by slots tied closely to specific parts of speech. This is one of several reasons why the label “noun phrase” (think of an NP being “headed” by or “projected” from an N), does not seem an appropriate label and “nominal expression” is preferred.

Secondly, when it comes to deviations from the default pattern, the most prominent thread running through the literature and through this paper is the association with different types of focus interpretations, whether we are dealing with deviations from the default relative order in continuity or with discontinuity. The label “focus” is used as a cover term for notions such as contrast, newness or highlighting in the same way as in the literature more generally, but it is often possible to be more specific with regard to the type of focus reading at issue in a given example. Importantly, these focus interpretations are associated not only with modifying elements, but also with modified ones, or even with entire utterances in “sentence focus” interpretations.

In principle, this study corroborates the argument in Schultze-Berndt & Simard (2012) that non-default word order of nominal expressions in flexible word order languages typically signals specific, non-default interpretations. However, it is also clear that we are only dealing with correlates and not with one-to-one mappings between form and interpretation (Matić & Wedgwood 2013). Importantly, not all deviations from the juxtaposed default necessarily map onto some kind of focus or otherwise “prominent” information-structural interpretation. For instance, some cases of non-default order in continuity seem to be due to heaviness effects instead. Furthermore, some minor types of discontinuity arise in connection with the behaviour of specific function words, rather than being associated with non-default information structure. In yet other cases, there is no clearly identifiable trigger for the deviating word order, as in some cases of Left-Edge Discontinuity in Vedic Sanskrit, where we may be dealing with a genre effect. Overall, it emerges that there are striking cross-linguistic similarities both formally and functionally. At the same time, language-specific characteristics such as the behaviour of Wackernagel elements constrain the formal patterns and functional correlates attested.