Universal 531:
- Original
- The smallest value for L in numeral systems with arithmetical operations is 4.
- Standardized
- IF a numeral system has arithmetical operations, THEN its smallest value for L is 4.
- Keywords
- numeral
- Domain
- lexicon
- Type
- no genuine implication; rather: provided that
- Status
- achronic
- Quality
- statistical
- Basis
- 56 languages mentioned in Greenberg 1978a
- Source
- Greenberg 1978a: 256 (#7)
- Counterexamples
1. A numeral system with arithmetical operations is the opposite of one with only simple lexical representation, cf. ##532, 1292.2. An example of a language with this limit is Port Essington (Tasmanian), spoken in Tasmania, with the system 1, 2, 2+1, ‘many’.