Re: Universal Violation Statistics

On Friday 05 September 2003 08:29 am, Peter Bleackley wrote:
> A quick summary of some recent posts
>
> Out of eighteen conlangs that violated at least one universal:
>
> 9 violated 1 universal
> 2 violated 2
> 2 violated 3
> 2 violated 4
> 1 violated 5
> 1 violated 8
> and 1 violated 19.
>
> The universals violated, in decreasing order of unpopularity, are
>
> Number 2, violated by 7 conlangs,
> Number 6, violated by 5,
> Numbers 1,9,and 39, violated by 4 each,
> Numbers 3,10,12 and 40, violated by three each,
> Numbers 20,21,22,23, and 32, each violated twice,
> And numbers 4,14,16,17,19,25,27,30,31,34,37,38,42 and 43, each
violated once.
>
> Pete
>
Hmm. Kélen doesn't have verbs, but if you define a relational as
close-enough-to-a-verb, then Kélen is more or less VSO and
prepositional. Looking over the universals list, there are two classes
of violations. Kélen violates 15 & 16 and any others that might deal
with auxiliary or subordinate verbs. Since there are only four
relationals, there is never more than one per clause.  Also, number 6
(SVO as an alternative in VSO langs) is violated, as the relational
always appears first, and when it doesn't, a clausal modifier or
conjunction appears first instead. Certainly an argument of the
relational never appears first.

The more interesting set of violations is 9-10-12 dealing with question
particles. Kélen has a question particle. It is treated as a mood
marker, along with the imperative, commissive, prohibitive, and
exclamatory markers. Universal 9 says "With well more than chance
frequency, when question particles or affixes are specified in position
by reference to the sentence as a whole, if initial, such elements are
found in prepositional languages, and, if final, in postpositional."
Since K is prepostional, it ought to have an initial question particle
rather than a final one. Universal 10 says "Such particles do not occur
in languages with dominant order VSO." Oh well. And, Universal 12 says
"If a language has dominant order VSO in declarative sentences, it
always puts interrogative words or phrases first in interrogative word
questions." Nope. Not here.

In creating Kélen, I did set out to violate the "all langs have nouns
and verbs and X" universal. However, I have also tried to conform with
as many of the others as makes sense.

--
Sylvia Sotomayor
sylvia1@ix.netcom.com
kelen@ix.netcom.com

Kélen language info can be found at:
http://home.netcom.com/~sylvia1/Kelen/kelen.html

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