The competing roles of SV(O) and VS(O) word orders in Xoždenie igumena Daniila

Though both Early East Slavic (EES) and Modern Russian have a relatively free word order, the distribution and function of word order in EES is quite distinct from Modern Russian. This paper is a study of word order within a single EES text, Xoždenie igumena Daniila, which is split into two major subdivisions: travel guide and narrative. In the travel guide, existential, stance, and motion verbs occur more frequently in VS order, and VS(O) order is more frequent overall; copular and transitive verbs occur more frequently in SV(O) order. Instances of the less frequent word order for the clause type occur as a result of specific conditioning contexts. The narrative, in contrast, has proportionally more SV(O) clauses and transitive verbs than the travel guide.