Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
789 entries · page 10 of 16
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 956 | IF direct and indirect/non-direct objects differ in their morphological coding (at least minimally), THEN they will also differ in their syntactic behavior (at least minimally), but not necessarily vice versa. | inflection, syntax | implication | grammatical relations, object, indirect, non-direct, direct |
| 957 | IF verbs of material transfer (giving and taking) and/or verbs of commanding exhibit anomalies with respect to the syntagmatic differentiation of objects, THEN verbs of information (telling and asking) will also be anomalous in this respect, but not vice versa. IF verbs of information are anomalous in this respect, THEN verbs of teaching and examining will also be anomalous, but not vice versa. |
inflection, syntax, semantics | implication | grammatical relations, object, ditransitive |
| 961 | IF there is a future tense resultative, THEN there is a past tense resultative. IF there is a past tense resultative, THEN there is a present tense resultative. |
inflection | implicational hierarchy | resultative, tense, present, past, future |
| 971 | IF there are plural words, THEN there is no inflectional morphology or morphology is head-marking. | inflection, syntax | implication | plural word, isolation, head-marking |
| 972 | IF one type of head-dependent construction will be either head-marked or dependent-marked, THEN other types of head-dependent constructions will equally be either head-marked or dependent-marked. | inflection, syntax | mutual implication | head-marking, dependent-marking |
| 982 | When there are plural allomorphs conditioned by semantically transparent classes of nouns, these classes will typically be defined along the Split Plural Hierarchy. | inflection, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | allomorphy, number, plural, animacy |
| 983 | IF nouns low on the split plurality hierarchy have irregular plurals, THEN nouns high on the split plurality hierarchy also have irregular plurals. | inflection, semantics | implication | number, plural, animacy |
| 1031 | IF VO, THEN Non-tensedness, Non-casedness, WITH-Construction, and Non-Absolute Converb. IF Non-tensedness, THEN VO, Non-casedness, WITH-Construction, and Non-Absolute Converb. IF Non-casedness, THEN VO, Non-tensedness, WITH-Construction, and Non-Absolute Converb. IF AND-construction, THEN VO, Non-tensedness, Non-casedness, and Non-Absolute Converb. IF Non-Absolute Converb, THEN VO, Non-tensedness, Non-casedness, and WITH-Construction. |
inflection, syntax | mutual implication | order, VO, verb, object, non-tensedness, non-casedness, WITH-construction, converb |
| 1032 | IF basic word order OV, THEN Tensedness, Casedness, AND-Construction, and Absolute Converb. IF Tensedness, THEN basic word order OV, Casedness, AND-Construction, and Absolute Converb. IF Casedness, THEN basic word order OV, Tensedness, AND-Construction, and Absolute Converb. IF AND-construction, THEN basic word order OV, Tensedness, Casedness, and Absolute Converb. IF Absolute Converb, THEN basic word order OV, Tensedness, Casedness, and AND-Construction. |
inflection, syntax | mutual implication | order, OV, verb, object, tensedness, casedness, AND-construction, converb |
| 1054 | IF there is agreement within NPs, THEN there is almost certainly agreement within clauses. | inflection, syntax | implication | NP, clause, agreement |
| 1055 | IF there is agreement within clauses, THEN agreement is likelier to be used than not to be used within NPs. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, NP, clause |
| 1056 | IF determiners and modifiers both agree with head nouns, THEN head nouns do not agree with attributive nouns. IF head nouns do not agree with attributive nouns, THEN both determiners and modifiers agree with head nouns. |
inflection, syntax | mutual implication | agreement, NP, determiner, modifier, attribution |
| 1057 | IF determiners agree within NPs, modifiers are likelier also to agree than not to agree. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, NP, determiner, modifier |
| 1058 | IF verbs agree in number, THEN they are very likely to agree in person. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, verb, number, person |
| 1059 | IF verbs agree in person, THEN they are even likelier also to agree in number. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, verb, number, person |
| 1060 | IF verbs agree in gender, THEN they are very likely also to agree in number. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, verb, number, gender |
| 1061 | IF verbs agree in person, THEN they are likelier not to agree than to agree in gender. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, verb, person, gender |
| 1062 | IF verbs agree in Gender, THEN they are likelier to agree than not to agree in Person. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, verb, person, gender |
| 1063 | Whenever NP-internal constituents agree in only a single category, this will not be Definiteness; it will most likely be Number. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | agreement, NP, number, definiteness |
| 1064 | Whenever there is agreement both within clauses and within NPs, IF NP-constituents agree in Number, THEN clause constituents will almost certainly also agree in Number. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, NP, clause, number |
| 1065 | Whenever there is agreement both within clauses and within NPs, IF clause-constituents agree in number, THEN NP constituents are very likely also to agree in number. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, NP, clause, number |
| 1066 | Whenever predicates agree with subjects in number and there is a politeness contrast for pronouns of address, with plural forms serving as polite singulars, the more verb-like a predicate the likelier it is to agree according to surface features of the subject (i.e., to be plural), and the more noun-like a predicate the likelier it is to agree according to the referential semantics of the subject (i.e., to be singular). | inflection, syntax, semantics | unconditional | agreement, number, politeness |
| 1079 | IF case, and especially genitive, is marked (enclitically) at the end of NPs, THEN word order is mainly SOV, NP Postposition, Genitive Noun, Noun Adjective (Greenberg’s type 24). | inflection, syntax | implication | case, enclitic, order, adposition, attributive, adjective, noun |
| 1087 | IF there is agreement with full noun phrases, THEN very likely there is agreement with pronouns. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, noun, pronoun |
| 1099 | IF there are mono-valent resultatives formed from bi-valent verbs , THEN there must be bi-valent resultatives formed from tri-valent verbs. | inflection, syntax | implication | resultative, valence |
| 1107 | Whenever there is an alignment split between bound and free pronouns, bound (i.e. agreement) forms are more likely to align accusatively, while case marking on free forms is more likely to align ergatively. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | agreement, alignment, split, case, ergative, accusative |
| 1108 | If any case has zero realization, or a zero allomorph, it will be absolutive or nominative. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | case, nominative, allomorphy, zero |
| 1109 | The absolute or nominative form of a noun will be used in citation. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | nominative case, absolutive case, semantics |
| 1110 | IF there is Locative Possessive, THEN there is deranking of simultaneous sequences. | inflection, syntax | implication | possessive, deranking |
| 1113 | IF predicate nouns are marked for person, THEN verbs are marked for person. | inflection, syntax | implication | predicate, person marking, noun, verb |
| 1114 | IF perfective aspect is expressed with the help of preverbs, THEN there will also be future tense formed by means of preverbs. | inflection, syntax | implication | tense, aspect, perfective, future |
| 1115 | IF case inflection on direct nominal arguments gets lost, THEN their word order becomes fixed, but not vice versa. |
inflection, syntax | implication | word order, inflection |
| 1120 | All personal pronouns are definite. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | definite, personal pronoun |
| 1122 | IF the pronominal dual does not extend to 3rd person, THEN there very likely is no nominal dual or it is restricted. | inflection | implication | number, dual, noun, pronoun, person, 3 |
| 1123 | IF the extension of the pronominal dual is limited and includes 3rd person, THEN all nouns (or at least some of them) have a dual. | inflection | implication | number, dual, noun, pronoun, person, 3 |
| 1124 | IF the pronominal dual is unrestricted, THEN the nominal dual is likelier to be restricted to natural pairs than IF the pronominal dual is restricted to whatever person(s). | inflection | implication | number, dual, noun, pair, pronoun, person |
| 1125 | IF the nominal dual is restricted to nouns other than those denoting natural pairs, THEN the pronominal dual is unrestricted. | inflection | implication | number, dual, noun, pair, pronoun, person |
| 1132 | IF subjects and objects can be incorporated into verbs, THEN they are not case-marked when occurring absolutely or they are case-marked and case marking shows ergative alignment. | inflection, syntax | implication | incorporation, subject, object, verb, case, alignment, ergative |
| 1133 | IF there is noun/pronoun incorporation, THEN the relationship between the verbal complex (including the incorporated noun/pronoun) and an absolute NP corresponding to the incorporated noun/pronoun is appositive. |
inflection, syntax | implication | incorporation, apposition |
| 1134 | IF a 3rd person pronoun can be incorporated when a corresponding absolute noun is present, THEN it can also be incorporated when a corresponding absolute noun is absent. | inflection, syntax | implication | incorporation, noun, pronoun, person, 3 |
| 1135 | IF the dual is conceived of as a paucal limited to two, THEN it will be conceived of as an ambal. |
inflection | implication | number, dual, paucal, ambal |
| 1136 | IF only one person differentiates a dual, THEN it will be the 1st person. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | number, dual, pronoun, person, 1, 2, 3 |
| 1137 | IF only two persons differentiate a dual, THEN the 1st is much likelier to be one of them than the 3rd. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | number, dual, pronoun, person, 1, 2, 3 |
| 1138 | IF a dual is differentiated for a particular person of non-pronominal agreement forms, THEN there will be a dual, or other number, for this person in pronouns. In fact, more generally: IF any number is differentiated for a particular person of non-pronominal agreement forms, THEN this number will also be distinguished for this person in pronouns. |
inflection, syntax | implication | number, dual, agreement, person, pronoun |
| 1139 | IF the dual extends to all number-inflecting personal pronouns and nouns, THEN it will be conceived of as a duo-paucal rather than as an ambal. | inflection, semantics | implication | number, dual, paucal, ambal, pronoun, noun |
| 1140 | IF the dual is conceived of as a paucal limited to two referents, THEN it will extend to all persons of the pronoun and all classes of nouns inflecting for number. | inflection, semantics | implication | number, dual, paucal, pronoun, person, noun |
| 1141 | IF the nominal dual is restricted to nouns other than those denoting natural pairs, THEN dual marking is avoided with these nouns if contextually redundant. | inflection | implication | number, dual, noun, pair |
| 1142 | The passive-to-ergative change is unidirectional. There are no passive constructions which have been shown to have developed from ergative constructions. | inflection, syntax | target < source | diathesis, passive, alignment, ergative |
| 1143 | IF a verbal morpheme has both reflexive and passive use, THEN it will also have the anticausative use. | inflection, syntax | implication | morpheme, reflexive, passive, anticausative |
| 1144 | IF there is a passive construction, THEN the verb is morphologically marked (vis-à-vis a basic, active construction). | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | diathesis, voice |