Re: Never violate a universal unless it seems like a good idea at the time

Peter Bleackley sikyal:

> Reading Greenberg's list of universals
>
> http://angli02.kgw.tu-berlin.de/Korean/Artikel02/Appendix3.html
>
> I've discovered that Khangaþyagon violates universals 2,3,6,10,12, and
> possibly 23 although I'm not sure of his terminology. This is mainly
> because Khangaþyagon is based on what seemed plausible to me without
> reading the list.
>
> I'd be interested to know how many universals other people's conlangs
> violate, and whether this came about naively or deliberately.
Yivrian violates #s 10, 39, and 40. None of these decisions were made
with conscious knowledge that I was violating a "universal", but I'm
sticking by them anyway. As the text of most of these universals admits,
these are *near* universals, or statistical universals, and
counterexamples are to be expected. I'm glad to let Yivrian be a
counterexample to at least a few.


--
Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/blog

Jesus asked them, "Who do you say that I am?"

And they answered, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground
of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our
interpersonal relationship."

And Jesus said, "What?"

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