Universal #726

Legacy number: 726

 Number  723
 Original  Morphemes subject to a rule which assigns a tone opposite to an adjacent tone are much more frequently encountered than morphemes in which some other phonological property is governed by a rule of polarity.
 Standardized  IF non-tonal phonological properties are assigned opposite values to an adjacent occurrence of that property within a morpheme, then the assignment of tones (provided the language is tonal) will also be governed by rules of polarity.
 Keywords  tone, morpheme
 Domain  phonology
 Type  implication
 Status  achronic
 Quality  statistical
 Basis  languages in Maddieson 1978
 Source  Maddieson 1978: 353

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Discussion
Counterexamples
The original is not REALLY tantamount to an implication valid for each individual language. It would be consistent with lots of tonal languages having tone polarity and very little other phonological polarity, but a few tonal languages having no tonal polarity but some other phonological polarity. Overall, tonal polarity would still be more frequent.
Notes
The original is not REALLY tantamount to an implication valid for each individual language. It would be consistent with lots of tonal languages having tone polarity and very little other phonological polarity, but a few tonal languages having no tonal polarity but some other phonological polarity. Overall, tonal polarity would still be more frequent.
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
The original is not REALLY tantamount to an implication valid for each individual language. It would be consistent with lots of tonal languages having tone polarity and very little other phonological polarity, but a few tonal languages having no tonal polarity but some other phonological polarity. Overall, tonal polarity would still be more frequent.