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Universal 200:

Posted in Universals Archive

Universal 200:

Original
No set of case marking elements both participate in agreement and are independent morphemes.
Standardized
IF a relational marker (case, adposition) participates in agreement, THEN it will not be an independent morpheme.
IF a relational marker (case, adposition) is an independent morpheme, THEN it will not participate in agreement.
Keywords
case, adposition, affix, agreement
Domain
inflection, syntax
Type
implication
Status
achronic
Quality
absolute
Basis
Russian (Slavic, Indo-European), Evenki (Tungus), Japanese (Japanese-Ryukyuan), Tagalog (W. Malayo-Polynesian, Austronesian), Amharic (Semitic, Afro-Asiatic), Estonian, Karelian, Vepsian (all Finnic, Uralic)
Source
Kilby 1981: 115 (D)
Counterexamples
“preposition-repetition” in Old and later non-literary Russian, Old Czech, Old Serbian, Lithuanian (Balto-Slavic, IE), postpositions not governing an affixal case in construction with demonstratives in Hungarian (Uralic) (Plank 1995: 63-64, 102, with references)

One Comment

  1. FP
    FP

    Kilby 1981: 118 refers to “efficiency” and “noun-identification” as the two main motivations for the incompatibility of separability and agreement.

    1. May 2020

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