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Universal 1132:

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 1132:

Original
If only one person differentiates a dual, it will very likely be the 1st rather than the 2nd or 3rd.
Standardized
IF only one person differentiates a dual, THEN it will be the 1st person.
Keywords
number, dual, pronoun, person, 1, 2, 3
Domain
inflection
Type
no genuine implication; rather: provided that
Status
achronic
Quality
absolute
Basis
languages surveyed in Plank 1989
Source
Plank 1989: 305
Counterexamples
Languages with only a 2nd person dual: Dizi (W. Omotic, Afro-Asiatic), independent pronouns and prefixal possessives have dual only in 2nd person (mentioned in Plank 1989: 303-4, but see caveat in Counterexamples to #567).Languages with only a 3rd person dual: Tunica (isolate possibly remotely related to Algonquian), in which it only occurs in the masculine, and Old Akkadian (Semitic, Afro-Asiatic) in which it is only present in the verb subject inflection (mentioned in Greenberg 1988: 1).South Arabian (Afro-Asiatic), in which dual with nouns and verb agreement is restricted to 3rd person.Hupa (Athabaskan), where the indirect way of expressing duality, by means of simultaneously marking verbs as plural and non-plural, is restricted to 3rd person subjects (mentioned in Plank 1989: 303-4).

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    1. Cf. #1137. 2. Cf. Greenberg’s statement (#1409): The existence of a 2nd person dual pronoun seems to always imply that of a 1st person dual, whether with or without the inclusive-exclusive distinction, and/or a 3rd person dual.

    1. May 2020

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