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Universal 369:

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 369:

Original
In agglutinative languages casual or fast speech shows less phonological deletion, fusion, and weakening than in flective ones, owing to the lack of syntactic redundancy that follows from the absence of (phrase-internal) agreement.
Standardized
IF morphology is agglutinative, THEN casual/fast speech shows less phonological reduction than if morphology is flexive.
Keywords
agglutination, flexion, fast speech, agreement
Domain
phonology, morphology, syntax
Type
implication
Status
achronic
Quality
absolute
Basis
unspecified
Source
Dressler 1985, adapted from Skalicka: Plank 1996, Plank 1998
Counterexamples

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    The correlation is intended to comprise three parameters:(i) agglutinative morphology, (ii) no phrase-internal agreement, (iii) little phonological reduction in casual/fast speech;vs.(i) flexive morphology, (ii) phrase-internal agreement, (iii) much phonological reduction in casual/fast speech.

    1. May 2020

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