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Universal 415:

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 415:

Original
Affixes are ordered so that their increasing distance from the stem reflects decreasing semantic relevance to it.
Standardized
Affixes are ordered so that their increasing distance from the stem reflects decreasing semantic relevance to it.
Keywords
affix-order, stem, relevance
Domain
inflection, semantics
Type
mutual implication
Status
achronic
Quality
statistical
Basis
sample of 50 languages in Bybee 1985a
Source
Bybee 1985a, cited in Moravcsik 1994: 50
Counterexamples

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    The more relevant, the closer; the less relevant, the more marginal.Others use “semantic scope” rather than “relevance” to predict relative affix ordering (e.g., Keren Rice).The relative chronology of univerbation is another predictor that has been suggested:The older the affix, the closer to the stem; the more recently univerbated, the more marginal.The interesting question is how well the relevance/scope predictions agree with the diachronic prediction.

    1. May 2020

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