Universal 179: agreement in Case ⇒ agreement in Gender ⇒ agreement in Number

Original: There is a hierarchy: Number > Gender > Case, such that if some target agrees in one category on the hierarchy then it will also agree in all categories higher on the hierarchy.
Standardized: IF a target agrees in Case, THEN it also agrees in Number and Gender.
IF a target agrees in Gender, THEN it also agrees in Number.
Keywords: agreement, number, case, gender, target
Domain: inflection, syntax
Type: implicational hierarchy
Status: achronic
Quality: a Euroversal rather than a universal
Basis: European languages
Source: Linfer 1992

Counterexamples: Dutch (W. Germanic, Indo-European): adjectives agree in gender but not in number (Hurford & Kirby).Persian (Iranian, Indo-European), Arabic (W. Semitic, Afro-Asiatic), Hungarian (Ugric, Uralic), Turkish (Turkic, Altaic): intensifiers agree in case and number (and person) but not in gender (P. Siemund, p.c.).In West Greenlandic (Eskimo-Aleut) and in Hopi (Uto-Aztecan) demonstratives agree in case and number but not in gender (Plank 1994a: 56). Earlier Egyptian (Afro-Asiatic): adnominal adjectives agree in gender but feminines show (at least in written language) no distinction of singular and plural forms.Coptic (Egyptian, Afro-Asiatic): most adjectives do not agree any longer with their head nouns. Among the exceptions are some distinguishing a masculine and a feminine form but not number. (F. Kammerzell, p.c.)

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