Universal 199:

Original: No set of case marking elements both participate in agreement and are separable from the head noun.
Standardized: IF a relational marker (case, adposition) participates in agreement, THEN it will not be separable from the head noun.
IF a relational marker (case, adposition) is separable from the head noun, THEN it will not participate in agreement.
Keywords: case, adposition, agreement
Domain: inflection, syntax
Type: implication
Status: achronic
Quality: absolute
Basis: Russian (Slavic, Indo-European), Evenki (Tungus), Japanese (Japanese-Ryukyuan), Tagalog (W. Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian), Amharic (Semitic, Afro-Asiatic), Estonian, Karelian, Vepsian (all Finnic, Uralic)
Source: Kilby 1981: 115 (C)

Counterexamples: “preposition-repetition” in Old and later non-literary Russian, Old Czech, Old Serbian, Lithuanian (Balto-Slavic, IE), postpositions not governing an affixal case in construction with demonstratives in Hungarian (Uralic) (Plank 1995: 63-64, 102, with references)

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One Comment

FP

Kilby 1981: 118 refers to “efficiency” and “noun-identification” as the two main motivations for the incompatibility of separability and agreement.Does being “separable” mean being an adposition rather than an affix? Or at least a phrase affix rather than a word affix?

1. May 2020

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