Universal 168: TO/ FROM ≥ AT

Original: The morphological complexity of a case marker to signal “direction to” is never less than that of a case marker to express “location”;
the morphological complexity of a case marker to signal “direction from” is never less than that of a case to express “location”.
Standardized: The morphological complexity of a case marker to signal “direction to” is never less than that of a case marker to express “location”;
the morphological complexity of a case marker to signal “direction from” is never less than that of a case to express “location”.
Keywords: case, morpheme, complexity
Domain: inflection, semantics
Type: implication
Status: achronic
Quality: absolute
Basis: Hungarian (Ugric, Uralic), English, German (both W. Germanic, Indo-European)
Source: Moravcsik 1994a: 39

Counterexamples: Coptic (Egyptian, Afro-Asiatic): hn- ‘in’ < Late Egyptian m-xnw-n- ‘inside of’ as compared with e- < Old/Middle/Late Egyptian r- ‘to’. (F. Kammerzell, p.c.)

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