Word Order Patterns in Ergative Languages

This paper examines word order patterns in ergative languages with a sample of 78 languages.It presents various patterns of clause order, order of head noun and modifiers (namely genitives, demonstratives, adjectives, numerals, and relative clauses), and order of adpositions and noun phrases.It proposes that patterns in individual word order parameters are closely related.The similarities and differences of word order between ergative languages and languages in general are addressed.A list of word order universals of ergative languages is also provided.