Universal 996:
- Original
- [Unfortunately, or luckily,] all grammars leak.
- Standardized
- All grammars leak.
- Keywords
- analogy, iconicity, economy, plumbing
- Domain
- phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, etc.
- Type
- unconditional
- Status
- diachronic
- Quality
- absolute
- Basis
- English, Latin, Nootka, Paiute, etc.
- Source
- Sapir 1921: 39
- Counterexamples
- UG
1. Isn’t this really an implication?IF someone or something is a grammar, THEN he/she/it leaks.By contraposition:IF someone or something doesn’t leak, THEN he/she/it’s no grammar (perhaps a bath tub, or a perfect engine of conceptual expression). 2. By “leak” Sapir means “is inconsistent, to a certain point”. By “grammar” Sapir means “a generalized expression of the feeling that analogous concepts and relations are most conveniently symbolized in analogous forms”. He believes grammar to be “a universal trait of language”.3. Equally [unfortunately, or luckily], no language is randomly inconsistent. The reason, in Sapir’s opinion: “an inherent tendency to economy of expression”.4. Generalizing even further, it had seemed to Heraclitus (ca. 550-480 BCE) that “panta rhei”.