Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
789 entries · page 2 of 16
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 79 | IF passivization involves (a) the complete assumption of the coding properties of the subject by the promoted object (and thus complete loss of its original case-coding), and in addition (b) promotion of non-accusative objects to direct object via dative-shifting results in verb-coding of the semantic case of those objects, THEN there will be a direct object-only constraint on passivization. | inflection, syntax | implication | diathesis, passivization, dative-shift, subject, direct object, indirect object, case |
| 83 | When direct objects are marked by accusative, non-direct objects do not gain accusative marking in dative-shifting. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | accusative case, indirect object, dative-shift |
| 84 | IF the verb agrees with anything other than subjects, THEN it agrees with some or all subjects. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb, agreement, subject |
| 85 | IF the verb agrees with anything other than subjects, THEN it agrees with some or all direct objects. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb, agreement, subject, direct object |
| 86 | IF the verb agrees with anything other than subjects and direct objects, THEN it agrees with some or all indirect objects. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb, agreement, subject, direct object, indirect object |
| 89 | IF there are any formal similarities in agreement markers, THEN they are between non-subject agreement markers. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | agreement, verb, direct object, indirect object, subject, adverbial object |
| 90 | An object agreement marker cannot be formally and semantically entirely distinct from a personal pronoun (in its object form). | inflection, syntax | unconditional | object, agreement, personal pronoun, verb |
| 93 | IF there is a gender distinction in the 2nd person singular of pronouns, THEN the 3rd person singular is likelier to have than to lack a gender distinction. | inflection | implication | pronoun, gender, number, singular, person, 2, 3 |
| 103 | IF there is agreement in unmarked construction types (e.g. with attributive adjectives as targets), THEN there is also agreement in corresponding marked construction types (e.g. with appositive adjectives as targets). | inflection, syntax | implication | attributive adjective, appositive, agreement, markedness |
| 104 | IF noun-phrase internal agreement (in class) is being lost on demonstratives, THEN adjectives do not, or no longer agree in class; IF it is being lost on adjectives, THEN numerals do not, or no longer agree in class. |
inflection, syntax | implication | adjective, numeral, demonstrative, noun class, agreement |
| 105 | IF adjectives are losing number agreement, THEN they do not, or no longer, have class agreement. | inflection, syntax | implication | adjective, agreement, noun class, number |
| 106 | When class and number agreement is being lost, not all class/number-agreeing adjectives lose it at the same time. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | adjective, noun class, number, agreement |
| 115 | Cases can be neutralized for a given Number, but not Numbers for a given Case. | inflection | unconditional | number, case |
| 116 | IF there is the category of case, THEN there is also the category of number. | inflection | implication | number, case |
| 117 | IF nouns are grammatically distinguished as active (animate) and passive (inanimate), THEN the passive (inanimate) nouns do not show number distinctions. | inflection | implication | noun, animate, inanimate, plural number |
| 118 | IF the verb agrees with an NP in an oblique case, THEN the verb agrees the NP in the nominative in the same sentence. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb, noun, agreement, case, nominative, oblique |
| 119 | IF NP-internal constituents agree in two categories, THEN these will most likely be number and gender or number and person, depending on whether the targets are modifiers/determiners (and the controllers head nouns) or head nouns (and the controllers attributive nouns). The second-most likely combination of two categories with modifier/determiner targets is that of number and case; and the only other permissible combination of two categories is that of gender and case. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | NP, agreement, number, gender, case, person |
| 120 | IF NP-internal constituents agree in more than two categories (the maximum being four), THEN those will always include number and gender and very likely also case. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | NP, agreement, number, gender, case |
| 122 | IF the same verbal meaning is expressible either through a construction where a complement of the verb is in the Accusative or through a construction where the same complement is in an adverbial case and there is a meaning difference between two constructions, THEN this semantic contrast will be either a contrast between a definite and an indefinite object, or a contrast between an object that is fully involved in the event and one that is partially involved, or a contrast between affected and non-affected participant. | inflection, syntax, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | object, case, accusative, adverbial, definite, indefinite, involvement, affectedness |
| 123 | Objects of transitive or subjects of intransitive sentences (absolutives) may be alternatively marked by an accusative-nominative or by a partitive, and this marking difference does not correlate with any difference in semantic case function, but with one or more of the following semantic properties of the verbs or nouns involved: a. the definiteness-indefiniteness of the noun phrase; b. the extent to which the object is involved in the event; c. the completedness vs. non-completedness of the event; d. whether the sentence is affirmative or negative. |
inflection, syntax, semantics | unconditional | direct object, subject, case, accusative, nominative, partitive, definiteness, involvement, completedness, affirmation, negation |
| 127 | IF any kinds of overt marking (dependent-marking, head-marking, word order) are used in action nominalizations, THEN they are also used in other constructions. | inflection, syntax | implication | nominalization, order, dependent-marking, head-marking |
| 128 | IF in transitive action nominalizations the non-Agent argument loses the dependent-marking or head-marking that it has in sentential constructions, THEN the Agent argument will lose it too, except in the marginal SENT-POSS type of action nominalizations. | inflection, syntax | implication | nominalization, dependent-marking, head-marking |
| 129 | In transitive action nominalizations, either all arguments retain their sentential dependent-marking or at least one of them genitivizes, except in the marginal MIX-type. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | nominalization, dependent-marking, case, genitive |
| 131 | IF an argument retains its sentential head-marking in an action nominalization, THEN the same argument will also retain its sentential dependent-marking. | inflection, syntax | implication | nominalization, head-marking, dependent-marking |
| 132 | IF action nominalizations are of the sentential type, with all arguments retaining their sentential dependent-marking, THEN basic order will be SOV and Genitive Noun. | inflection, syntax | implication | nominalization, dependent-marking, order, SOV, attributive, genitive |
| 133 | In action nominalizations, IF the S argument receives sentential dependent-marking, THEN the A and P arguments are unlikely to receive non-sentential marking, and vice versa; while IF the S argument receives genitive marking, THEN the A and P arguments are likely to receive sentential marking, and vice versa. | inflection, syntax | mutual implication | nominalization, dependent-marking, genitive |
| 134 | IF there is ergative alignment, THEN action nominalizations are likely to be of the SENT or SENT-POSS types and unlikely to be of the POSS-ACC or NOMN types. | inflection, syntax | implication | nominalization, alignment, ergative-absolutive, agent, case, genitive |
| 135 | IF non-pronominal subjects (S) and agents (A) are genitivized in action nominalizations, THEN pronominal ones are genitivized as well. | inflection, syntax | implication | nominalization, case, genitive, pronoun<br> |
| 137 | The morphological bulk of affixes for direct cases, measured in number of syllables, will not exceed that of affixes for oblique cases. | inflection | unconditional | case, direct, oblique, syllable |
| 138 | IF there are de-verbal case markers others than locatives, THEN there will be de-verbal locative case markers. | inflection | implication | case, locative, grammaticalization, serial verb |
| 142 | In NP-internal agreement, IF adjectives inflect for the dual, THEN demonstratives inflect for dual also. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, NP, demonstrative, adjective, number, dual |
| 143 | IF the adjective agrees in definiteness, THEN the genitive will precede the noun. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, adjective, definiteness, order, attributive, genitive, noun |
| 144 | IF there is no adjective agreement, THEN the genitive will precede the noun. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, adjective, order, attributive, genitive, noun |
| 145 | IF basic order is SOV, THEN predicative adjectives have non-verbal status, and vice versa. IF basic order is SVO or VSO, THEN predicative adjectives tend to be verbal, and vice versa. |
inflection, syntax | mutual implication | order, SOV, SVO, VSO, predicative adjective, verb |
| 147 | IF attributive adjectives have the form of relative clauses, THEN basic order is SVO, and vice versa. | inflection, syntax | mutual implication | attribution, adjective, relative clause, order, SVO |
| 148 | IF adjectives are inflected, THEN nouns are inflected. | inflection, syntax | implication | word class, adjective, noun |
| 149 | The number of inflectional classes of adjectives cannot be larger than the number of inflectional classes of nouns. | inflection | unconditional | inflection class, word class, adjective, noun |
| 150 | IF head nouns have adjective-like inflection, THEN so do adnominal nouns. | inflection, syntax | implication | adjective, inflection, noun, attribution |
| 151 | IF adnominal adjectives inflect like nouns, THEN so do headless ones. | inflection, syntax | implication | word class, adjective, noun, head |
| 152 | IF lower simple cardinal numerals have noun-like inflection and syntax, THEN so do higher numerals. IF higher simple cardinal numerals have adjectival inflection and syntax, THEN so do lower numerals. |
inflection, syntax | implication | word class, numeral, noun, adjective |
| 153 | IF nouns share inflectional properties with adjectives, THEN they also share these properties with determiners. | inflection | implication | word class, noun, adjective, determiner |
| 154 | IF the same adposition is used as a marker for both direct object and dative (indirect object, recipient, etc.), including such non-prototypical datives as projected recipient, THEN object occurs unmarked in some cases. | inflection, syntax | implication | direct object, indirect object, recipient, adposition |
| 155 | IF there is overt marking of the direct object in the unitransitive clause, THEN there is overt marking of the indirect object (dative). IF indirect object (dative) marking is suspended in some cases, THEN direct object marking is suspended in at least those same cases. |
inflection, syntax | implication | transitivity, direct object, indirect object, accusative, dative |
| 156 | IF overt marking of an object in the bitransitive clause differs from the marking of instrumental, THEN there is overt dative marking. | inflection, syntax | implication | direct object, indirect object, transitivity, dative, instrumental |
| 157 | IF an adposition occurs as both an object marker and an allative marker, THEN it also occurs as a dative marker. | inflection, syntax | implication | adposition, direct object, indirect object, allative, dative |
| 158 | IF an adposition occurs as both a dative marker and a locative marker, THEN it also occurs as an allative marker. | inflection, syntax | implication | adposition, dative, locative, allative |
| 159 | IF object and transitive-clause allative are marked identically, even non-adpositionally, THEN dative is also identically marked. | inflection, syntax | implication | direct object, indirect object, accusative, allative, dative, syncretism |
| 160 | IF dative and transitive-clause locative are identically marked, even non-adpositionally, THEN dative* is also identically marked. | inflection, syntax | implication | dative, locative, allative, syncretism |
| 161 | Overt marking of dative or spatial functions cannot be suspended when a referent is non-specific or indefinite. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | indirect object, spatial complement, indefinite, specific reference |
| 162 | Overt marking of dative or spatial functions does not alternate depending on whether the referent is partitive or non-partitive. |
inflection, syntax | unconditional | indirect object, spatial complement, dative, partitive |