Word Order and the Principle of “Early Immediate Constituents” (EIC)

Abstract

EIC (the principle of “Early Immediate Constituents”) seeks to explain word order variation at the phrase level in performance and processes of grammaticalisation on the basis of human information processing. It is embedded in functionally oriented linguistic modelling and typological argumentation. By quantification and empirical testing of EIC driven hypotheses, the principle proves rather plausible although some questions are still to be answered and integration into a wider linguistic model will have to be accomplished.