Universal #1034

Legacy number: 1034

 Number  1030
 Original  Only the intense pole – loud stress, high pitch and length – ever has the accentual property. There is no language in which there is one and just one weakest stress or one lowest pitch (or shortest segment) in a phonological word.
 Standardized  Only the intense pole – loud stress, high pitch and length – ever has the accentual property. There is no language in which there is one and just one weakest stress or one lowest pitch (or shortest segment) in a phonological word.
 Keywords  stress, pitch, length, accent
 Domain  prosodic phonology
 Type  unconditional
 Status  achronic
 Quality  almost absolute
 Basis  sample of almost 200 languages in Greenberg & Kaschube 1976
 Source  Greenberg & Kaschube 1976: 3

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Discussion
Counterexamples
Chamorro (W. Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian) has a low pitch for accent and neutral rising intonation (Chung 1983: 38, Hyman 1977: 74, referring to Topping 1969: 71 (see also Topping & Dungca 1973: 45)).
Notes
Accent = phonetic features occurring just once or at most once in the phonological word, with cumulative or demarcative function (Greenberg & Kaschube 1976).
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
Accent = phonetic features occurring just once or at most once in the phonological word, with cumulative or demarcative function (Greenberg & Kaschube 1976).