Armin Buch

Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Linguistic Universals

Armin W. Buch1

2012/11/28

1Relying heavily on material by Gerhard Jäger and David Erschler

Armin Buch

Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Linguistic universals

I Properties shared by all languagesI Trivial: all languages have consonants and vowelsI More interesting: Do properties correlate?I Something like “If a language has a phoneme /u/, than it

has neutral gender” (wrong!)I implicational universals

Armin Buch

Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Example of an implicational universal

I If a language has first/second person reflexives, it has thirdperson reflexives.

I Modern English: 1st, 2nd, 3rd person (‘myself . . . ’)I Modern French, German: only 3rd person (‘sich’)I Old English: no dedicated forms for reflexivesI 1/2 reflexives, but no 3 reflexives: unattested

Armin Buch

Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg’s universals

I Joseph Greenberg, 1963: “Some Universals of Grammarwith Particular Reference to the Order of MeaningfulElements”

I a relatively small sample of geographically andgenetically diverse languages

I investigated correlations between features of word orderI in a somewhat hard to define “basic word order”I Also keep in mind languages with no fixed word order

(Slavic l., Latin, . . . )

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Problems

I Most universals are only statistical, not absoluteI Correlations might be due to:

I genetic relationshipI areal distributionI chance: all instances of a rare feature might co-occur with

a certain very frequent feature

I So it is not very clear how to count independent events.I But still, universals give a general feeling of what to

expect

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 1

I In declarative sentences with nominal subject and object,the dominant order is [. . . ]2 one in which the subjectprecedes the object.

I WALS mapI Mind the “nominal”: pronominal forms might behave

differently

2I’m leaving out statements of frequency (“almost always” etc.).

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 2

I In languages with prepositions, the genitive [. . . ] followsthe governing noun, while in languages with postpositionsit [. . . ] precedes it.

I WALS mapI diachronic explanation: Genitive constructions are a

possible source for adpositions (source)I English “in front of” etc.I Japanese postpositions:

(1) Teburu-noTable-GEN

ue-nitop-LOC

aruexists

“It’s on the table.”

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 3

I [. . . ] languages with dominant VSO order are alwaysprepositional.

I WALS map

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 4

I Languages with normal SOV order are postpositional.I WALS mapI Well known exception: Latin (SOV, prepositions)

(2) remthing.ACC

publicampublic.ACC

universamwhole.ACC

petisattack.2SG

‘You are attacking the whole republic.’ (Cic. Cat1.)

(3) exfrom

urbecity.ABL

‘out of the city’

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 5

I If a language has dominant SOV order and the genitivefollows the governing noun, then the adjective likewisefollows the noun.

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 8

I When a yes-no question is differentiated from thecorresponding assertion by an intonational pattern, thedistinctive intonational features of each of these patternsare reckoned from the end of the sentence rather than fromthe beginning.

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 9

I [. . . ] when question particles or affixes are specified inposition by reference to the sentence as a whole, if initial,such elements are found in prepositional languages, and, iffinal, in postpositional.

I WALS mapI weak evidence

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 12

I If a language has dominant order VSO in declarativesentences, it always puts interrogative words or phrasesfirst in interrogative word questions; if it has dominantorder SOV in declarative sentences, there is never such aninvariant rule.

I WALS map

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 17

I [. . . ] languages with dominant order VSO have theadjective after the noun.

I WALS mapI “There is no evidence of any relationship between the

order of Verb and Object and the order of Adjective andNoun.” (Dryer 1988:191, Dryer 1986:98; as cited here)

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 18

I When the descriptive adjective precedes the noun, thedemonstrative and the numeral, [. . . ] do likewise.

I WALS map

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 19

I When the general rule is that the descriptive adjectivefollows, there may be a minority of adjectives whichusually precede, but when the general rule is thatdescriptive adjectives precede, there are no exceptions.

I French: petit, grand

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 20

I When any or all of the items (demonstrative, numeral, anddescriptive adjective) precede the noun, they are alwaysfound in that order. If they follow, the order is either thesame or its exact opposite.

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 25

I If the pronominal object follows the verb, so does thenominal object.

I Not vice versa!I Example from Russian

(4) Rybakfisherman

pojmalcaught

rybufish

‘The fisherman caught a fish.’

(5) Rybakfisherman

jejoher

pojmalcaught

‘The fisherman caught it.’

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 27

I If a language is exclusively suffixing, it is postpositional;if it is exclusively prefixing, it is prepositional.

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 28

I If both the derivation and inflection follow the root, orthey both precede the root, the derivation is alwaysbetween the root and the inflection.

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 29

I If a language has inflection, it always has derivation.

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 34

I No language has a trial number unless it has a dual. Nolanguage has a dual unless it has a plural.

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 36

I If a language has the category of gender, it always has thecategory of number.

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Linguistic Universals

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Conclusions

Greenberg 37

I A language never has more gender categories innonsingular numbers than in the singular.

I German: No morphological gender in plural(demonstratives, determiners, adjectives)

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Greenberg 42

I All languages have pronominal categories involving atleast three persons and two numbers.

I 4 persons: inclusive (“We’re going to the cinema. . . ” —“Great!”) vs. exclusive ‘we’ (“. . . without you.”)

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Explanations for universals

I At least some of universals are fairly robust, and thus needto be explained

I Are they wired into our brain (universal grammar)?I A priori, this is at contradiction with the statistical nature

of the findings.I What would a language be like if it violated a universal?

I Harder to learn/speak/process?I Not even a language?

I In word order, uniform headedness seems to be preferred

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Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Structures that are easier to process will begrammaticalized before the grammar sanctions amore difficult structure of the relevant type. Thisresults in implicational dependencies such as “ifSOV, then postpositions in PP,” a word-orderco-occurrence that will be argued to be optimal forprocessing, in contrast to SOV and prepositions.

Many of the universals are explained by “head ofphrase” generalization. Head-final languages willhave SOV, postpositions, genitive-noun order etc,whereas in head-initial languages the situation isreverse.

(Hawkins 1983, 1994)

Armin Buch

Linguistic Universals

Greenberg’suniversals

Conclusions

Sources

I World Atlas of Language StructuresI Universals ArchiveI Das grammatische Raritätenkabinett