Universal #365

Legacy number: 365

 Number  364
 Original  Inflectional affixes tend to be longer in agglutinative languages than in flective languages.
 Standardized  IF morphology is agglutinative, THEN inflectional affixes tend to be longer.
IF morphology is flexive, THEN inflectional affixes tend to be shorter.
 Formula  agglutinative ⇒ long inflectional affixes;
flexive ⇒ short inflectional affixes
 Keywords  affix, complexity, agglutination, flexion
 Domain  inflection
 Type  mutual implication
 Status  achronic
 Quality  statistical
 Basis  unspecified
 Source  Dressler 1985, adapted from Skalicka: Plank 1996, Plank 1998, Moravcsik 1994a: 41

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Discussion
Notes
Implications presumably intended as mutual: "mutually conducive traits".For a tabular summary of Skalicka's typological "constructs" see Plank 1998: 204-205.Presumably the claim is about average length of inflectional affixes. Alternatively, it could be read as being about affixes of corresponding categories: e.g., dative plural, if cumulated, is shorter than dative plus plural, if not cumulated. Or even, ... than dative on its own and plural on its own, if not cumulated.
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
Implications presumably intended as mutual: "mutually conducive traits". For a tabular summary of Skalicka's typological "constructs" see Plank 1998: 204-205. Presumably the claim is about average length of inflectional affixes. Alternatively, it could be read as being about affixes of corresponding categories: e.g., dative plural, if cumulated, is shorter than dative plus plural, if not cumulated. Or even, ... than dative on its own and plural on its own, if not cumulated.