Word order

Multiple-choice exercise

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Choose the best answer for each question

  1. Most languages on earth are either ...
    1.   SVO or OVS ordered
    2.   SVO or SOV ordered
    3.   SVO or VOS ordered
    4.   VOS or SOV ordered
  2. How many basic arrangements of S, V and O are possible?
    1.   9
    2.   8
    3.   6
    4.   4
  3. Languages with free or very flexible word order are ...
    1.   usually Romance or Slavonic
    2.   usually isolating and uninflected
    3.   usually heavily inflected to show case
    4.   usually Germanic, like English
  4. Turkish and Japanese both have ...
    1.   postpositions
    2.   prepositions
  5. Hungarian, Japanese and Korean have ...
    1.   OVS ordering
    2.   VOS ordering
    3.   SVO ordering
    4.   SOV ordering
  6. German and French have two canonical word orders which are ...
    1.   VOS and OVS
    2.   SOV and OSV
    3.   SVO and SOV
    4.   OSV and SVO
  7. With this ring, I thee wed is an example of ...
    1.   SOV ordering in English
    2.   OSV ordering in English
    3.   OVS ordering in English
    4.   VSO ordering in English
  8. In the sentence He kissed Mary, how do we know who kissed whom?
    1.   By the position of the verb phrase
    2.   By the ordering of the noun phrases
    3.   By the ordering of the noun phrases and the form of the pronoun
  9. Scandinavian languages mostly have ...
    1.   VOS ordering
    2.   SOV ordering
    3.   SVO ordering
    4.   OVS ordering
  10. French and English both exhibit ...
    1.   Genitive-Noun ordering
    2.   Noun-Genitive ordering