Behaghel's laws describe the basic principles of the position of words and phrases in a sentence. They were formulated by the linguist
Otto Behaghel in the last volume of his four volume work ''Deutsche Syntax: Eine geschichtliche Darstellung'' (published 1923–1932).
They include the following cross-language principles:
# Elements that belong close together intellectually will also be placed close together (Behaghel's First Law)
# That which is less important (or already known to the listener) is placed before that which is important. (Behaghel's Second Law)
# The distinguishing phrase precedes that which is distinguished.
# Given two phrases, when possible, the shorter precedes the longer. (Law of Increasing Terms (or Constituents))
It is thus ensured that the utterances that the speaker finds important will remain in the thoughts of the listener, in that they are at the end of the sentence. From Behaghel's laws evolved the later
Theme-rheme. They serve together with other of his topics as suggestions for research in
Quantitative Linguistics
Quantitative linguistics (QL) is a sub-discipline of general linguistics and, more specifically, of mathematical linguistics. Quantitative linguistics deals with language learning, language change, and application as well as structure of natural ...
.
Behaghel's law of increasing terms is also known as "Panini's law" after
the eponymous Sanskrit grammarian. This name was introduced by William Cooper and
John Ross (1975) in their study of English set phrases.
English examples include "free and easy", "lock, stock and barrel", "kit and (ca)boodle", etc.
Michael O'Connor (1978) has observed a similar statistical preference in the case of
Biblical Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...
poetry.
[Michael Patrick O'Connor, ]
Hebrew verse structure
', (Eisenbrauns
Eisenbrauns, an imprint of Penn State University Press, is an academic publisher specializing in the ancient Near East and biblical studies. They publish approximately twenty new books and reference works each year, as well as reprinting out-of ...
, 1978), pp. 97 ''et seqq''.
Literature
*Otto Behaghel: ''Beziehungen zwischen Umfang und Reihenfolge von Satzgliedern.'' In: ''Indogermanische Forschungen'' 25, 1909, 110–142.
*Karl-Heinz Best: ''Otto Behaghel (1854-1936)''. In: ''Glottometrics'' 14, 2007, 80-86 (PD
ram-verlag.eu.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Behaghel'S lawS
Syntax
Quantitative linguistics