Universal 454: personal possessive prefixes ⇒ G N

Universal 454: personal possessive prefixes ⇒ G N

Original

Personal possessive prefixes always imply a GN order, but not the converse; for personal possessive suffixes there is no such rule.

Standardized

IF there are personal possessive prefixes, THEN genitive precedes its head noun, but not vice versa

Keywords

possession, person, prefix, suffix, order, attributive, noun

Domain

inflection, syntax

Type

implication

Status

achronic

Quality

almost absolute?

Basis

75 languages surveyed in Ultan 1978e

Source

Ultan 1978e: 36

Counterexamples

Pipil (Uto-Aztecan) (Rijkhoff 1992: 255)