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Universal 1417:

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 1417:

Original
If there are separate forms for narrative and non-narrative past contexts, the non-narrative forms tend to be more highly marked than the narrative ones.
Standardized
IF there are separate forms for narrative and non-narrative past contexts, the non-narrative forms tend to be more highly marked than the narrative ones.
Keywords
tense, past, context, narrative, markedness
Domain
inflection
Type
no genuine implication; rather: provided that
Status
achronic
Quality
statistical
Basis
sample of 75 languages in Dahl 1984
Source
Dahl 1980: 22, Dahl 1984: 117
Counterexamples

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    Dahl defines a narrative discourse as one where the speaker relates a series of real or fictive events in the order they took place. According to Dahl, a sentence occurs in a narrative context if the temporal point of reference (in Reichenbach’s sense) is determined by the point in time at which the last event related in the preceding context took place.

    1. May 2020

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