Universal #2000

Legacy number: 1000

 Number  996
 Original  [Unfortunately, or luckily,] all grammars leak.
 Standardized  All grammars leak.
 Keywords  analogy, iconicity, economy, plumbing
 Domain  phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, etc.
 Type  unconditional
 Status  diachronic
 Quality  absolute
 Basis  English, Latin, Nootka, Paiute, etc.
 Source  Sapir 1921: 39

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Discussion
Counterexamples
UG
Notes
1. Isn't this really an implication?IF someone or something is a grammar, THEN he/she/it leaks.By contraposition:IF someone or something doesn't leak, THEN he/she/it's no grammar (perhaps a bath tub, or a perfect engine of conceptual expression). 2. By "leak" Sapir means "is inconsistent, to a certain point". By "grammar" Sapir means "a generalized expression of the feeling that analogous concepts and relations are most conveniently symbolized in analogous forms". He believes grammar to be "a universal trait of language".3. Equally [unfortunately, or luckily], no language is randomly inconsistent. The reason, in Sapir's opinion: "an inherent tendency to economy of expression".4. Generalizing even further, it had seemed to Heraclitus (ca. 550-480 BCE) that "panta rhei".
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
1. Isn't this really an implication? IF someone or something is a grammar, THEN he/she/it leaks. By contraposition: IF someone or something doesn't leak, THEN he/she/it's no grammar (perhaps a bath tub, or a perfect engine of conceptual expression).

2. By "leak" Sapir means "is inconsistent, to a certain point". By "grammar" Sapir means "a generalized expression of the feeling that analogous concepts and relations are most conveniently symbolized in analogous forms". He believes grammar to be "a universal trait of language".

3. Equally [unfortunately, or luckily], no language is randomly inconsistent. The reason, in Sapir's opinion: "an inherent tendency to economy of expression".

4. Generalizing even further, it had seemed to Heraclitus (ca. 550-480 BCE) that "panta rhei".