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Universal 1583:

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 1583:

Original
The following four causative oppositions: (1) laugh – make laugh, amuse; (2) boil – bring to boil; (3) burn – ignite (of a paper); (4) break, get broken – break in two (of a stick),
display varying predispositions to expression by one or another formal opposition. Thus,
A. The probability that a formal opposition with a causative morpheme will appear decreases from the first causative opposition to the fourth.
B. The probability that a formal opposition with an anticausative morpheme will appear increases from the first causative opposition to the fourth.
C. The probability that conversive formal opposition will appear increases from the second causative opposition to the fourth (it was not not found at all in the first).
D. Suppletive formal oppositions are encountered almost exclusively in the second and third causative oppositions, which indicates that there is a greater tendency for the first and fourth semantic oppositions to be expressed by one and the same root morpheme.
Standardized
The following four causative oppositions: (1) laugh – make laugh, amuse; (2) boil – bring to boil; (3) burn – ignite (of a paper); (4) break, get broken – break in two (of a stick),
display varying predispositions to expression by one or another formal opposition. Thus,
A. The probability that a formal opposition with a causative morpheme will appear decreases from the first causative opposition to the fourth.
B. The probability that a formal opposition with an anticausative morpheme will appear increases from the first causative opposition to the fourth.
C. The probability that a conversive formal opposition will appear increases from the second causative opposition to the fourth (it was not not found at all in the first).
D. Suppletive formal oppositions are encountered almost exclusively in the second and third causative oppositions, which indicates that there is a greater tendency for the first and fourth semantic oppositions to be expressed by one and the same root morpheme.
Keywords
causative
Domain
morphology, semantics
Type
implication
Status
achronic
Quality
absolute
Basis
over 100 languages
Source
Nedjalkov 1969: 109-110, Nedjalkov & Sil’nickij 1969: 44-45, Nedjalkov & Sil’nickij 1973: 26-27
Counterexamples

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    A CONVERSIVE formal opposition is a subtype of NON-DIRECTED oppositions. In this type of opposition it is not formally obvious which member is to be treated as the basic one and which as the derived. The members of a conversive opposition have the same stems.

    1. May 2020

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