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Universal 1732:

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 1732:

Original
The definite article never carries more gender, number, and/or case inflection in adnominal use than it does in pronominal use.
Standardized
IF the definite article carries any gender, number, and/or case inflection in adnominal use, THEN it carries at least the same inflection in pronominal use.
Keywords
definite article, gender, number, case, pronoun, determiner
Domain
inflection, syntax
Type
implication
Status
achronic
Quality
statistical
Basis
languages surveyed in Moravcsik 1994b, including Hungarian, Mari (both Finno-Ugric), Albanian (Albanian, IE), Classical and Modern Greek (Greek, IE), English, German, Swedish, Dutch, Frisian, Old Icelandic (all Germanic, IE), Welsh, Breton, Manx (all Celtic, IE), Spanish, Rumanian, Romantsch, Latin, Sardinian, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, Italian, Occitan (all Romance, IE), Macedonian (Slavic, IE), Abkhaz (NW Caucasian), Turkish (Turkic, Altaic), Maltese (Semitic, Afro-Asiatic), Basque (isolate), Jicaltepec Mixtec (Oto-Manguean), Samoan (Oceanic, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian), Berbice Dutch Creole, Toba (Western Malayo-Polynesian), Chantyal (?)
Source
Moravcsik 1994b
Counterexamples

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    Cf. #1738.

    1. May 2020

Comments are closed.