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Universal 130:

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 130:

Original
Head-dependent word order is the same in ANCs and non-derived NPs.
Standardized
IF heads precede/follow dependents in non-derived noun phrases, THEN they will also precede/follow them in action nominalizations.
Keywords
nominalization, order
Domain
syntax
Type
mutual implication
Status
achronic but presumably diachronically motivated
Quality
statistical
Basis
sample of languages in Koptjevskaja-Tamm 1993
Source
Koptjevskaja-Tamm 1993: 64 (); Koptjevskaja-Tamm 1996: 43
Counterexamples
some Kwa languages (Niger-Congo) (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 1993: section 9.2)

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    1. Cf. #446: Complement-balancing languages favour assimilation of ANCs to non-derived NPs, while complement-deranking languages favour retention of sentential marking in ANCs.2. Givón (1970: 405) observes that “when a language develops a nominalization pattern for a complex verb phrase, it maintains in the nominalization the same syntactic order which held in the verb phrase itself.” But here the model for ANCs is claimed to be the basic NP rather than the basic VP.

    1. May 2020

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