Universal 1153: Rel N ⇒ N Rel
- Original
- For any language, preposed relative clause implies postposed relative clause.
- Standardized
- IF there are preposed relative clauses, THEN there are postposed ones.
- Keywords
- relative clause, order
- Domain
- syntax
- Type
- implication
- Status
- achronic
- Quality
- statistical
- Basis
- 106 languages surveyed in Moravcsik 1969
- Source
- Moravcsik 1969: 81
- Counterexamples
- Bambara (Mande, Niger-Congo), Bengali (Indic, Indo-European)
This correlates to some extent, with Greenberg’s universal about adjective order: “When the general rule is that the descriptive adjective follows, there may be a minority of adjectives which usually precede, but when the general rule is that the descriptive adjectives precede, there are no exceptions”; see #58.