Universal #1870
Legacy number: 1870
| Number | 1865 |
| Original | Baby talk has shorter sentences, fewer subordinate clauses, fewer grammatical relations, more repetitions than normal adult-to-adult speech, often omits inflections and function words, and the copula. |
| Standardized | Baby talk has shorter sentences, fewer subordinate clauses, fewer grammatical relations, more repetitions than normal adult-to-adult speech, often omits inflections and function words, and the copula. |
| Keywords | baby talk, complexity, subordination, copula |
| Domain | inflection, syntax, discourse |
| Type | unconditional |
| Status | achronic |
| Quality | statistical |
| Basis | 27 lgs, high in IE, low in African and Oceanic lgs: Bengali, Marathi (both Indic, IE), Dutch, English, German (all Germanic, IE), Greek (Greek, IE), Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish (all Romance, IE), Serbo-Croatian (Slavic, IE), Latvian (Baltic, IE), Syrian Arabic, Neo-Aramaic, Maltese (all Semitic, Afro-Asiatic), Berber (Berber, Afro-Asiatic), Cocopa, Pomo (both Hokan), Comanche (Uto-Aztecan), Hidatsa (Siouan), Hungarian (Ugric, Uralic), Japanese (Japanese-Ryukyuan), Kannada (Havyaka) (Dravidian), Kipsigis (Nilotic, Nilo-Saharan), Luo (Eastern Sudanic, Nilo-Saharan), Nivkh (Isolate), Samoan (Oceanic, E. Malayo-Polynesian), Tzeltal (Mayan) |
| Source | Ferguson 1978a: 209, with reference to more detailed treatments |
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