Verb-initial word order to derive the structures of verb-initial languages from underlyingly SVO structures, functional linguists would look at how cognitive principles make it possible for languages to have different word orders and why certain word orders are more common, less common, or almost non-existent. Russell Tomlin (in his 1986 paper "Basic word order. Functional principles") argued that there are three cognitively grounded principles which can account for the observed distributions of the frequencies of word order in human languages. The three principles are: Since subjects are generally more likely than objects to be topics and to have animate referents, the topic-first principle
Superior letter Superior letter In typography and handwriting, a superior letter is a lower-case letter placed above the baseline and made smaller than ordinary script. The style has traditionally been distinct from superscript. Formerly quite common in abbreviations, the original purpose was to make handwritten abbreviations clearly distinct from normal words. These could also be used to enable the important words on signs to be larger. In technical terms, the superior letter can also be called the superscripted minuscule letter. In modern usage, with word processors and text entry interfaces, superscript and superior letters are produced in the same way and look