Skip to content

Universal 1894:

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 1894:

Original
No inflectional affixes can belong to the set of properties borrowed fro a language unless at least one derivational affix also belongs to the set.
Standardized
IF there ais a borrowed inflectional affix, THEN there is a borrowed derivational affix.
Keywords
language contact, borrowing, affix
Domain
morphology
Type
implication
Status
diachronic
Quality
absolute
Basis
languages mentions in Moravcsik 1978e
Source
Moravcsik 1978e: 112
Counterexamples
Bilin (Cushitic, Afro-Asiatic) borrowed a set of object pronoun suffixes from Tigre (Semitic, Afro-Asiatic), yet no derivational borrowing has this far been demonstrated. The Ethiopian Semitic languages Zway, Soddo and Gafat acquired their verbal prefix ‘ti-’, a bound morpheme, from either Sidamo or Omotic, with no derivational loan from the same sources. (Hetzron 1980: 255)

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP
    1. May 2020

Comments are closed.