Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
789 entries · page 16 of 16
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1927 | IF subjunctives are used in the complement clauses, THEN they can also be used in main clauses. | inflection, syntax | implication | mood, subjunctive, complementation |
| 1933 | IF anything other than numerals agrees with nouns in class, THEN numerals will also agree with nouns in class. | syntax, inflection | implication | agreement, noun class, numeral |
| 1944 | When there are suppletive stems for a verb 'to give' determined by the person of the recipient, the opposition will always be 1st vs. 2nd&3rd person or 1st&2nd vs. 3rd person, never 1st&3rd vs. 2nd person. | inflection | unconditional | suppletion, verb, recipient, person, 1, 2, 3 |
| 1948 | 2nd person plurals never appear to make a distinction between a plurality of addressees and combinations of one or more addressees with non-ego, non-addressees, i.e., 3rd persons. | inflection | unconditional | pronoun, personal pronoun, number, non-singular, 2nd person, inclusive, exclusive |
| 1951 | In deixis, person and related spatial, 1st and 3rd person never align as against 2nd. 2nd person may align with 1st or 3rd or both. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | deixis, spatial, person, 1, 2, 3 |
| 1952 | There can be no spread of plural marking to personal pronouns unless there is such plural marking on demonstrative pronouns; there can be no spread of plural marking to demonstrative pronouns unless there is such plural marking on (at least personal) nouns; there can be no spread of plural marking to 1st person personal pronouns unless there is such plural marking on 2nd person personal pronouns; there can be no spread of plural marking to inanimate nouns unless there is such plural marking on personal nouns. |
inflection | implication | plural, noun, animacy, demonstrative, personal pronoun, 1st person, 2nd person |
| 1953 | IF there are Class IV predicates requiring non-canonicaly marked A/S, THEN there are also Class Ia-b, Class IIa-c, Class IIIa-b and Class V predicates requiring non-canonically marked A/S or O. | inflection, lexicon | implication | case, agent, patient, subject, predicate |
| 1954 | IF non-canonical marking with Class IIIa predicates, THEN also non-canonical marking with Class Ib predicates, and vice versa. | inflection, lexicon | mutual implication | case, agent, patient, subject, predicate |
| 1955 | IF there are Class IIIa/Ib predicates requiring non-canonicaly marked A/S, THEN there are also Class Ia predicates requiring non-canonically marked A/S. | inflection, lexicon | implication | case, agent, subject, predicate |
| 1958 | IF there is a great deal of ellipsis (e.g., in replies to questions or in comments on statements, or of coreferential NPs in relative clauses), THEN there tend to be noun classes rather than classifiers. IF there is little such ellipsis (and coreferential NPs need to be repeated a great deal, making some variation desirable), THEN there tend to be noun classifiers rather than noun classes. |
inflection, syntax, discourse | implication | noun class, classifier, ellipsis |
| 1962 | IF there is isolation (i.e., no inflectional morphology), THEN word classes of noun and verb are only weakly differentiated, in the sense of (many) roots equally serving as nouns and verbs. | syntax, inflection | implication | isolation, word classes, noun, verb |
| 1974 | In a given language the grammatical categories of the verb (e.g., person, voice, mood, tense, negation) may be carried to a greater or lesser extent by auxiliary verbs or particles which co-occur with the verb. In an extreme case these categories may be carried by a dummy morph which has no apparent lexical meaning at all. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | verb, inflection, auxiliary |
| 1975 | There is a tendency for the existential, copulative, and verb-category carrying dummy elements of a language (a) synchronically to interpenetrate in complex patterns of suppletion, semantic overlapping, and partial homonymy, and (b) diachronically to merge, split, and otherwise restructure among themselves. | inflection, syntax, semantics | unconditional | verb, existence, copula, auxiliary, suppletion, homonymy |
| 1976 | There are severe limitations on the kinds of synchronic patterns and diachronic restructurings which may occur in existential-copulative-auxiliary systems, and such patterns and changes are related to syntactic characteristics of a very general typological nature. In other words, a particular pattern of constructions of 'being' tends to reflect the general syntactic character of the language, and changes in the pattern tend to form part of general typological shifts. | inflection, syntax, semantics | implication | verb, existence, copula, auxiliary |
| 1977 | Tenseless or present-tense copulative expressions connecting nouns are more likely to vary diachronically between zero and overt morphemic marking than other copulative expressions or existential or auxiliary expressions. On the one hand, the N1 is N2 construction is the most likely place for optional omission and eventual full deletion, and, on the other hand, when the language has a zero copula, this same construction is the most likely place for the appearance of a new copulative marker. | inflection, syntax, semantics | implication | |
| 1984 | IF basic order is OV, THEN a frequently-used kind of subordinate clause is one with conjunctive verb forms. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, OV, subordination, conjunctive, |
| 1987 | IF basic order is OV, THEN plural marking on nouns is optional, and is avoided in particular when nouns are accompanied by numerals. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, OV, plural, numeral |
| 1991 | The negative of past tense forms of the lexical items for existential and copulative function tends to be more regular in formation than the present-tense negative. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb, existence, copula, negation, tense, past, present |
| 1992 | IF the lexical items for existential and copulative function are separate, and they are in a suppletive relation with verbs meaning 'become' and 'stay', then 'become' will be related to the copula and 'stay' to the existential verb. | inflection, syntax, lexicon | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | verb, existence, copula, suppletion |
| 1993 | In an SOV language with the lexical items for existential and copulative function separate, the Ex tends to be used as an auxiliary combining with the conjunctive to form 'present state' tenses of perfect or present continuous value; as such it tends to change from an independent following auxiliary to a tense-forming suffix. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | order, SOV, verb, existence, copula, auxiliary, conjunctive, tense, aspect, present, perfect, continuous, suffix |
| 1995 | When gender distinctions are being neutralized in pronominal or other relevant paradigms by way of morphological replacement, non-human or neuter forms win out, replacing human/non-neuter forms, rather than vice versa. | inflection | unconditional | gender, neuter, animacy, markedness, neutralization |
| 1996 | IF there is a gender system, THEN the domain of animate nouns is further differentiated; IF there is a system of noun classification, THEN the domain of inanimate nouns is further differentiated. |
inflection, syntax, semantics | implication | gender, noun class, animacy |
| 1997 | It is more natural for a two-term gender distinction in the plural, human vs. non-human, to come about, through semantic reanalysis, from the two-term distinction human male vs. other than the other way round. | inflection, syntax, semantics | target < source | gender, animacy, human, masculine, feminine |
| 1998 | IF there are gender-number-person contrasts on the predicate agreeing in these categories with the subject, THEN there are the same contrasts on subject pronouns. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, verb, gender, number, person, pronoun |
| 1999 | IF a bound form is morphologically replaced through analogical levelling or otherwise, THEN the corresponding free form is also replaced, or has already been replaced. | inflection, syntax | implication | free form, bound form, analogy, levelling |
| 2001 | Some semantic criteria never define a gender completely. For example, there is never a gender exclusively for the names of languages. | inflection | unconditional | gender |
| 2002 | Gender cannot be assigned on the basis of syntactic properties of nouns (such as, e.g., that of taking prepositional complements). | inflection, syntax | unconditional | gender, gender assignment |
| 2004 | IF there is a gender distinction in any pronoun other than 3rd person, THEN there will be a gender distinction (the same?) in 3rd person. | inflection | implication | pronoun, person, gender |
| 2005 | The higher the (simple) cardinal numerals, the unlikelier they are to agree in gender. | inflection, syntax | implication | numeral, agreement, gender |
| 2006 | IF an agreement target can agree [in gender, number, or whatever], THEN typically it must agree, even if the agreement controller lacks the appropriate features. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, gender, number |
| 2007 | IF infinitive phrases are non-prototypical controllers of agreement in gender and number, requiring neutral agreement forms, THEN so are clauses. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, gender, number, infinitive, clause |
| 2008 | The Agreement Hierarchy:attributive < predicate < relative pronoun < personal pronoun(i) Possible agreement pattern are constrained as follows: As we move rightwards along the hierarchy, the likelihood of semantic agreement [in gender or number] [with hybrid nouns] will increase monotonically (that is, with no intervening decrease).(ii) Whenever, in a given position on the Agreement Hierarchy there is a difference between the agreements found in the nominative and in the oblique cases, the likelihood of semantic agreement in the nominative will be as high as or higher than the likelihood of semantic agreement in the oblique cases.(iii) When stacked targets of a given controller stand in different agreement forms, the further target will show semantic agreement.(iv) If parallel targets show different agreement forms, then the further target will show semantic agreement.(v) For any particular target type, the further it is removed from its controller, the greater the likelihood of semantic agreement. | inflection, syntax, semantics | implicational hierarchy | agreement, gender, number, case, nominative, oblique |
| 2009 | When gender agreement is in decline, IF target words other than personal pronouns continue to agree in gender, THEN personal pronouns also continue to agree in gender. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, gender, personal pronoun |
| 2010 | In agreement with conjoined NPs and person resolution is required, when the conjuncts include a 1st person, 1st person agreement forms will be used; otherwise, when the conjuncts include a 2nd person, 2nd person agreement forms will be used; otherwise, 3rd person agreement forms (the default) are used. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | agreement, coordination, resolution rules, person, person hierarchy, 1, 2, 3 |
| 2011 | The type of gender resolution system found is constrained by the [gender] assignment system of the language. Languages with strict semantic assignment systems [...] have semantic resolution systems, as do those with predominantly semantic systems [...]. Languages with formal assignment systems may have semantic resolution [...], syntactic (=formal) resolution [...], or mixed resolution [...]. Informally speaking, gender resolution may be "more semantic" but not "less semantic" than gender assignment. | inflection, syntax, semantics | implication | agreement, coordination, resolution rules, gender |
| 2016 | Overall Dependency Hierarchy between Grammatical Systems: 1. Polarity (I) 2. Tense; Aspect; Evidentiality (II) 3. { Person; Reference classification (gender etc.) (III) 4. { Number (III) } 5. Case (IV) } This basically indicates that a grammatical system may be dependent on any system above it in the hierarchy. The lower system may have a different set of choices available according to which term is chosen from the higher system. The braces indicate mutual dependencies (i) between person and reference classification, and number; and (ii) between number and case. Further expectations: 1. Mood should not be dependent on aspect, number, or case; mood should not be dependent on polarity, nor vice versa. 2. Definiteness is probably to be added quite low in the hierarchy, just above Case and below Number, or at the same level as Case or Number (Definiteness may depend on Number, and vice versa; Definiteness may depend on number, and vice versa). |
inflection | implicational hierarchy | polarity, tense, aspect, evidentiality, person, gender, number, case, neutralization, syncretism |
| 2017 | When a system does show functional markedness it is generally the case that (i) when the number of choices in the system is reduced, in a particular context, the unmarked term will always be retained, and will have its semantic scope extended; and (ii) if the choices in system X depend on that made in system Y, we will always expect more choices in X to be associated with the unmarked than with the marked terms from Y.Markedness distributions:Polarity: positive is functionally and almost always formally unmarked, and negative marked;Number: singular is almost always functionally and often also formally unmarked;Person: if any person, then 3rd;Tense, Aspect: often no unmarked term, or crosslinguistically variable;Case: generally case that covers intransitive subject function is unmarked, but sometimes also accusative;Reference classification: often masculine unmarked, sometimes feminine. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | markedness, polarity, tense, aspect, evidentiality, person, gender, number, case |
| 2018 | IF there is switch-reference marking, THEN alignment for (all) syntactic purposes is accusative. | inflection, syntax | implication | switch-reference, alignment, accusative |
| 2019 | (i) IF there are classifiers for other contrasts, THEN there are ones for the contrast human/nonhuman or animate/inanimate;(ii) IF there are genders or noun classes for other contrasts, THEN there are ones for the contrast human/nonhuman or animate/inanimate.(iii) There is a contrast human/nonhuman or animate/inanimate recognized by some grammatical forms (such as interrogative pronouns) or rules. | inflection, syntax | implication | classifier, gender, animacy |