Universal #1975
Legacy number: 1975
| Number | 1969 |
| Original | There is a tendency for the existential, copulative, and verb-category carrying dummy elements of a language (a) synchronically to interpenetrate in complex patterns of suppletion, semantic overlapping, and partial homonymy, and (b) diachronically to merge, split, and otherwise restructure among themselves. |
| Standardized | There is a tendency for the existential, copulative, and verb-category carrying dummy elements of a language (a) synchronically to interpenetrate in complex patterns of suppletion, semantic overlapping, and partial homonymy, and (b) diachronically to merge, split, and otherwise restructure among themselves. |
| Keywords | verb, existence, copula, auxiliary, suppletion, homonymy |
| Domain | inflection, syntax, semantics |
| Type | unconditional |
| Status | achronic, diachronic |
| Quality | statistical |
| Basis | "widely held assumption" |
| Source | Ferguson 1972: 79 |
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