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Universal 203:

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 203:

Original
No set of case marking elements both participate in agreement and fail to express subject-object relations.
Standardized
IF a relational marker (case, adposition) participates in agreement, THEN it will not fail to express subject-object relations.
IF a relational marker (case, adposition) fails to express subject-object relations, THEN it will not participates in agreement.
Keywords
case, adposition, agreement, grammatical relations
Domain
inflection, syntax
Type
mutual 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: 116 (G)
Counterexamples

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP
    1. May 2020

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