Scrambling is a syntactic phenomenon wherein sentences can be formulated using a variety of different word orders without a substantial change in meaning. Instead, the reordering of words from their canonical position has consequences on their contribution to the discourse (i.e., the information's "newness" to the conversation). Scrambling does not occur in English, but it is frequent in languages with freer word order, such as German, Russian, Persian and Turkic languages. The term was coined by John R. "Haj" Ross in his 1967 dissertation and is widely used in present work, particularly with the generative tradition.
Analysis
Discourse Although scrambling does not change the semantic interpretation ("meaning") of the sentence, its scrambled configurations will be given in particular contexts related to discourse. This is the underlying information that contextualizes a conversation, when you add to the discourse you will reference "old" and "new" information. Within syntax, these can be structurally represented through topic (TopP) and focus (FocP) phrases. Topic is the pre-established context of the discourse, whereas Focus is the "new" or emphasized information being highlighted.
Tree structure (movement approach)
These additional phrasal categories occur between the clausal phrase (CP) and tense phrase (TP – previously referred to as inflection phrase "IP"). Both TopP and FocP have empty specifier positions that can house the scrambled XPs (phrases). When using discourse phrasal categories, what would typically be notated as "CP" becomes ForceP which will specify the clausal type (i.e., declarative, interrogative, etc.). The empty specifier positions (i.e., "XP") in the figure provide a landing site for phrases to move to. These sites are where phrases will be scrambled under the A-movement approach, which claims that scrambled words move to clause-initial position (see § Base-generation vs. movement below). This movement has been proposed to be driven by the structural constraint "EPP" (extended projection principle), which selects for a phrasal category as its specifier. Unlike the EPP:D feature in "DP movement" into subject position, it functions similarly to EPP in wh-movement and topicalization, where it selects for a phrasal category that the language allows to move into "topic" and "focus" position (often determiner phrases "DP" or preposition phrases "PP").
Case marking Scrambling is most common in morphologically rich languages with overt case markers, which help to keep track of how entities relate to a verb. For example, the Japanese suffix [-ga] is a nominative marker, which means that the entity is the subject of the verb, and [-o] is an accusative marker that signals the object of a verb. This allows speakers to know that [Kēkio Maryga taberu] means "Mary eats cake" and not "Cake eats Mary".
Examples
Examples from Japanese (short distance) Japanese is an SOV language with extensive scrambling due to its robust case-marking system (e.g., が -ga for nominative case, subject marker; を -o for accusative case, direct object marker; に -ni for dative case, indirect object or location marker). Japanese relies heavily on case markers to determine the roles of constituents, allowing word order to be flexible without ambiguity. Scrambling has no syntactic or semantic penalty because the parser immediately uses case markers to interpret arguments. It is often driven by the need to emphasize certain constituents or highlight new information. The following example from Japanese illustrates a transitive example of short distance scrambling (i.e., to clause initial position).
In this default sentence, the subject ('Mary') and object (kēki, 'cake') retain their typical order. There is no specific emphasis or focus with the default sentence structure.
The object (kēki, 'cake') is fronted, highlighting the subject ('Mary') as new information or the focus. As you can see, in this table, despite the ordering of the agent (i.e., one who carries out action) 'Mary' and the patient (i.e., thing being acted upon) 'cake' changing, there is not difference in their core meaning. Instead, what changes is the information being emphasized. In 1(a), there is either no focus (a statement), or the 'cake' is being emphasized, whereas in 1(b), 'Mary' is the focus. A speaker would generate the sentence in 1(b) when they wanted to emphasize Mary, or when providing new information. For example, if someone asked "who is eating the cake?", the response could be "CakeTOP MARYFOC eats". The canonical sentence "Mary cake eats" would still be an appropriate answer, but the scrambled configuration emphasizes the "new" information. Studies (Yamashita, 1997) show that scrambled sentences in Japanese do not impose a processing penalty, unlike in some other languages. Case markers enable the parser to immediately assign syntactic roles, reducing reliance on word order. At early parsing stages, Japanese exhibits non-configurationality. This indicates that: 1) Arguments are not strictly hierarchically ordered; 2) Constituents attach directly to the clause, with case markers providing necessary cues for syntactic and semantic interpretation.
Examples from German
Ditransitive embedded vlause The following examples from German illustrate typical instances of scrambling:
These examples illustrate scrambling in the midfield of a subordinate clause in German. The "midfield" is a position within the sentence structure, with "frontfield" and "endfield" acting like bookends for the sentence (usually C-head/subject and V/object). The midfield is where we typically see scrambling occur in freer word order languages. All six clauses are acceptable, whereby the actual order that appears is determined by pragmatic considerations such as emphasis (i.e., Focus and Topic). The canonical word order is usually considered the one that native speakers accept as the most natural in which none of the referents are known. If one takes the first clause (clause a) as the canonical order, then scrambling has occurred in clauses b–f. The three constituents (DP's) der Mann, der Frau, and die Bohnen have been scrambled to different positions depending on the discourse, with the second pronounced entity (DP) being the focus of the phrase (see "Discourse").
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