The superiority of a movement approach to Greenberg’s Universal 20 (a reply to Dryer 2018)

This article is a reply to Matthew Dryer’s critique (2018, “On the order of demonstrative, numeral, adjective, and noun,” Language 94.4.798–833) of the derivation of Joseph Greenberg’s Universal 20 (1963, “Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements”) that I proposed in 2005 (“Deriving Greenberg’s Universal 20 and its exceptions,” Linguistic Inquiry 36.3.315–332). My claim is that Dryer’s approach compares unfavorably with the movement approach I advocated then (and in subsequent work). Dryer’s iconic principles are tailored to apply just to the nominal elements demonstrative, numeral, adjective, and noun (not to mention the fact that they essentially restate the facts that they are intended to explain). In particular the iconic principles cannot carry over to the order of other elements displaying the exact same pattern in the nominal and clausal domains. One would have to contrive distinct iconic principles for each such domain. The movement approach I have suggested instead generalizes to all such domains naturally, as the very same movement options are involved. The appendix to this article considers the putative counter-examples mentioned by Dryer, arguing that on closer inspection they prove to be either spurious or far from constituting clear counter-evidence.