Skip to content

Universal 1952:

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 1952:

Original
There can … be [a] correlation between whether a language has grammatical noun classes or lexical noun classifiers, and its preference for discourse organisation.
Standardized
IF there is a great deal of ellipsis (e.g., in replies to questions or in comments on statements, or of coreferential NPs in relative clauses), THEN there tend to be noun classes rather than classifiers.
IF there is little such ellipsis (and coreferential NPs need to be repeated a great deal, making some variation desirable), THEN there tend to be noun classifiers rather than noun classes.
Keywords
noun class, classifier, ellipsis
Domain
inflection, syntax, discourse
Type
implication
Status
achronic
Quality
statistical
Basis
Dyirbal, Yidiny (Pama-Nyungan, Australian)
Source
Dixon 1986: 109-110
Counterexamples

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    1. See also ##803, 804.2. Note the Original phrasing: there CAN be such a correlation. But IS there one? A mutual (=correlation) or a one-way implication?

    1. May 2020

Comments are closed.