Implicational phonological universals
Vladimir Borissov Pericliev · Folia Linguistica · 2008
The UPSID database, comprising the segment inventories of 451 languages, was computationally inspected for implicational universals of type “If Segment A, then Segment B”. The system found 146 statistically significant (near) universals that are supported by languages from at least two language families from at least two geographical areas. Some implications of these findings are discussed. A principle holding for implicational phonological universals is proposed, stating that the antecedent and the consequent of an implicational universal must share at least one feature and, additionally, the consequent must have an equal or smaller number of features than the antecedent. The principle is both statistically significant and highly predictive (valid in 94.5% of all found universals).