Implicational hierarchy
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Implicational hierarchy, in linguistics, is a chain of implicational universals. A set of chained universals is schematically shown as in (1):
(1) A < B < C < D
It can be reformulated in the following way: If a language has property D, then it also has properties A, B, and C; if a language has a property C, then it also has properties A and B, etc. In other words, the implicational hierarchy defines the possible combinations of properties A, B, C, and D as listed in matrix (2):
| A | B | C | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type 1: | + | + | + | + |
| Type 2: | + | + | + | - |
| Type 3: | + | + | - | - |
| Type 4: | + | - | - | - |
| Type 5: | - | - | - | - |
Implicational hierarchies are a useful tool in capturing linguistic generalizations pertaining the different components of the language. They are found in all subfields of grammar.
(3) is an example of an implicational hierarchy concerning the distribution of nasal phonemes across languages, which concerns dental/alveolar, bilabial, and palatal voiced nasals, respectively:
(3) /n/ < /m/ < /ɲ/
This hierarchy defines the following possible combinations of dental/alveolar, bilabial, and palatal voiced nasals in the phoneme inventory of a language:
(4)
| /n/ | /m/ | /ɲ/ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type 1: | /n/ | /m/ | /ɲ/ |
| Type 2: | /n/ | /m/ | - |
| Type 3: | /n/ | - | - |
In other words, the hierarchy implies that there are no languages with /ɲ/ but without /m/ and /n/, or with /ɲ/ and /m/ but without /n/.