Universal #586

Legacy number: 586

 Number  583
 Original  Semantically simple morphemes are never systematically more complex in phonetic form than semantically more complex ones.
 Standardized  IF morphemes are semantically less complex than others, THEN they will not systematically be more complex in phonetic form than these.
 Keywords  morpheme, complexity, semantics, iconicity
 Domain  phonology, morphology
 Type  no genuine implication; rather: provided that
 Status  achronic
 Quality  absolute
 Basis  unspecified
 Source  C. Lehmann 1974, cited in Moravcsik 1980: 26, Moravcsik 1994a: 41

← Back to Universals Archive

Discussion
Notes
implicationally:IF a morpheme is of semantic complexity n, THEN it will not be more complex in phonetic form than morphemes of semantic complexity n+1.
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
implicationally: IF a morpheme is of semantic complexity n, THEN it will not be more complex in phonetic form than morphemes of semantic complexity n+1.