Universal #674

Legacy number: 674

 Number  671
 Original  Lexical items that are more stable than other items in one language family tend to be among the more stable items in another language family.
 Standardized  IF lexical items are more stable than other items in one language family, THEN these items are among the more stable items in another language family.
 Keywords  word
 Domain  lexicon
 Type  implication
 Status  diachronic
 Quality  statistical
 Basis  sample of Oswalt 1975
 Source  Oswalt 1975

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Discussion
Notes
What is the generalization?(i) Some lexical items are stabler than others.(ii) These stabler lexical items tend to be the same for all languages.Hence, knowing that lexical item is stable in language a, you can predict it will be stable in all other lgs.
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
What is the generalization?
(i) Some lexical items are stabler than others.
(ii) These stabler lexical items tend to be the same for all languages.
Hence, knowing that lexical item is stable in language a, you can predict it will be stable in all other lgs.