Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
789 entries · page 8 of 16
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 568 | IF 2nd and 3rd person differentiate a dual, THEN so does (with more than chance frequency) 1st (but not vice versa). | inflection | implication | pronoun, personal pronoun, number, dual, 3rd person, 2nd person, 1st person |
| 571 | IF present and past tenses have completely identical stems, THEN there are other means of distinguishing these two tenses. | inflection | implication | persent tense, past tense |
| 572 | (In Indo-European) IF there is no nominal case marking, THEN there will be an article. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, article |
| 573 | IF the definite article is grammaticalized in subject NPs, THEN it is also grammaticalized in direct object NPs. IF the definite article is grammaticalized in direct object NPs, THEN it is also grammaticalized in prepositionally marked NPs. |
inflection, syntax | implicational hierarchy | article, grammaticalization, PP, direct object NP, subject NP |
| 575 | IF there is obligatory marking of (in)definiteness, THEN there will be obligatory marking of nominal plurality (but not vice versa). | inflection, syntax | implication | definiteness, number, plural, noun |
| 576 | IF there is obligatory marking of (in)definiteness, THEN there will be no obligatory marking of numeral classification. | inflection, syntax | implication | definiteness, numeral classifier |
| 577 | IF there is obligatory marking of (in)definiteness, THEN there will be no stacked adnominal numeral constructions. | inflection, syntax | implication | definiteness, numeral |
| 578 | IF a dual and a plural are distinguished in the 1st person exclusive form of a pronoun, THEN they are also distinguished in the inclusive. | inflection | implication | number, dual, plural, pronoun, inclusive, exclusive |
| 579 | IF personal pronouns can have semantic rather than syntactic agreement in gender or number with a particular noun, THEN relative pronouns, predicative, and attributive constituents can also have semantic agreement with that noun. IF relative pronouns can have semantic agreement in gender or number with a particular noun, THEN predicative, and attributive constituents can also have semantic agreement with that noun. IF predicative constituents can have semantic agreement in gender or number with a particular noun, THEN attributive constituents can also have semantic agreement with that noun. |
inflection, syntax, semantics | implicational hierarchy | agreement, gender, number, attributive, predicate, relative pronoun, personal pronoun |
| 580 | IF any inflectional category is expressed through suppletion in nouns, THEN it is also expressed suppletively in pronouns or verbs. | inflection | implication | suppletion, noun, verb, pronoun |
| 581 | IF stacked targets (such as attributive adjective and a determiner) may differ in agreeing on a referential-semantic or a syntactic basis, THEN the target further from the controller is likelier than the one closer to it to agree on a semantic basis. | inflection, syntax, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | agreement, attribution, adjective, determiner |
| 583 | When there are gender distinctions in the singular, IF there is a gender distinction in 1st and/or 2nd person non-singular, THEN there is the same gender distinction in the singular involving either the corresponding person(s) or 3rd person. | inflection | implication | gender, number, singular, person, 1, 2, 3, pronoun |
| 584 | When there are no gender distinctions in the singular, IF there is a gender distinction in 1st person, THEN there is the same gender distinction in 2nd person for any one non-singular number, and IF there is a gender distinction in 2nd person, THEN there is the same gender distinction in 3rd person. | inflection | implication | gender, number, singular, non-singular, person, 1, 2, 3 |
| 585 | IF there is any inflection in nouns, THEN there are also some inflections in pronouns. | inflection | implication | inflection, noun, pronoun |
| 589 | IF morphology is agglutinative, THEN there is no grammatical gender. | inflection | implication | agglutination, gender |
| 590 | IF there is grammatical gender, THEN morphology is flexive. | inflection | implication | flexion, gender |
| 591 | Whenever in a language there are two classes of noun phrases such that members of one class are case-marked ergatively and members of the other class are case-marked accusatively, and there is a semantic difference between the classes related either to activeness of noun phrase referents, or their quantitative properties, or their pragmatic prominence, members of the class that ranks higher on these properties will be marked accusatively and members of the lower-ranking class, ergatively. | inflection, syntax, semantics | implicational hierarchy | case, accusative, ergative, NP, hierarchy, split |
| 601 | IF basic order is VO, THEN the chances are equal that there is person-number inflection or that there isn't. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, VO, verb, inflection, person, number |
| 602 | IF the sentence describing the caused event is intransitive, THEN the range of noun phrases that occur in this construction will include intransitive subjects. IF the sentence describing the caused event is transitive, THEN the range of noun phrase that occur in this construction will include objects. |
inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | causative verb, NP, accusative case, intransitive subject, transitive object |
| 603 | Whenever there is more than one alignment type of verb agreement, one being ergative and the other non-ergative: ergative verb agreement occurs in perfective sentences, and non-ergative verb agreement occurs in imperfective sentences. |
inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | agreement, alignment, ergative, aspect, perfective |
| 604 | IF there is agreement between the verb and some of its noun phrase complements with respect to “affectedness” or quality, THEN the noun phrase complements participating in this kind of agreement will be objects and intransitive subjects. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | agreement, verb, NP, semantics, affectedness, object, intransitive subject |
| 605 | IF alignment is accusative for some/many purposes, THEN verb agreement in person or number or gender is not limited to ergative alignment. | inflection, syntax | implication | alignment, accusative, ergative, verb agreement, person, number, gender |
| 610 | IF there is switch-reference marking with 1st and/or 2nd Person, THEN also with 3rd person, but not vice versa. | inflection, syntax | implication | switch-reference, 1 person, 2 person, 3 person |
| 611 | IF there are reflexive pronouns distinct from non-reflexive ones with 1st and/or 2nd Person, THEN also with 3rd Person, but not vice versa. | inflection | implication | reflexive pronoun, non-reflexive pronoun, 1 person, 2 person, 3 person |
| 612 | Reference clauses for Switch-Reference marking are never subordinate to Marking clauses. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | switch-reference |
| 613 | IF the switch-reference marker is a suffix, THEN the marking clause precedes the Reference clause; IF the switch-reference marker is a verbal prefix, THEN the marking clause follows the reference clause. |
inflection, syntax | implication | switch-reference, suffix, prefix, order |
| 614 | IF there is switch-reference marking between non-adjacent clauses, THEN switch-reference between adjacent clauses will be marked as well. |
inflection, syntax | implication | switch-reference, order, adjacency |
| 615 | IF there is Switch-Reference marking, THEN word order is verb-final . |
inflection, syntax | implication | switch-reference, order, verb-final |
| 627 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme, THEN basic order is verb-initial or verb-final. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, verb-initial, verb-final, case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme |
| 630 | IF a distributive-share quantifier word and its ordinary counterpart are associated, in a certain construction, with different number morphology, THEN the distributive share quantifier word is associated with plural morphology, and the ordinary quantifier word with singular morphology. | inflection, syntax, lexicon | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | quantifier, distributive, number, plural, singular |
| 635 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme, THEN nominal inflection will be agglutinative. | syntax, inflection | implication | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, agglutination, noun |
| 636 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme, THEN there will be blurred word-class distinction between nouns and adjectives. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, word class, noun, adjective |
| 637 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme, THEN syntax will be non-configurational. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, non-configurational syntax |
| 638 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme, THEN there will be ergative or other non-accusative alignment. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, ergative-absolutive alignment |
| 639 | If any pronominal category is used to show degrees of respect or social distance, THEN most commonly it is the category of number. | inflection, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | personal pronoun, number, respect, social distance |
| 640 | IF there is any variation in number to show degrees of respect or social distance, THEN it is used in pronominal reference only to individuals, never to groups. | inflection, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | personal pronoun, number, respect, social distance |
| 641 | IF there is any variation of number in pronominal reference showing different degrees of respect or social distance, THEN the non-singular typically indicates a higher degree of respect toward the referent, or greater social distance between him and other participants in the speech act, than does the singular. | inflection, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | personal pronoun, non-singular number, singular number, respect, social distance |
| 642 | IF a repluralized or a double plural pronominal form as well as an original, archaic or simple plural are found in alternation showing different degrees of respect or social distance, THEN the former indicates greater respect or social distance than the latter. | inflection, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | personal pronoun, plural number, double plural, respect, social distance |
| 643 | Variation of more than one pronominal category may occur in the same language in reference showing different degrees of respect. | inflection, semantics | unconditional | personal pronoun, respect, social distance |
| 644 | IF there is variation of the category of person in personal pronouns so as to show degrees of respect or social distance, THEN there is variation of number for the same purpose. | inflection, semantics | implication | personal pronoun, person, number, respect, social distance |
| 645 | In languages in which variation of person in pronominal reference is used to show degrees of respect or social distance, the 3rd person indicates greater social distance when used in reference to either the addressee or the speaker than do the pronouns of the 2nd and 1st person, respectively. | inflection, semantics | unconditional | personal pronoun, 3 person, 2 person, 1 person, respect, social distance, addressee, speaker |
| 646 | Variation of person in pronominal reference indicates greater difference in degree of respect or social distance than does variation of number. | inflection, semantics | implication | personal pronoun, person, number, respect, social distance |
| 647 | IF 3rd person personal pronoun is used to show greater respect or social distance than the 2nd person pronoun in reference to the addressee, THEN this use is usually introduced by substitution of nouns or nominal expressions used in respectful address. | inflection, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | personal pronoun, person, number, respect, social distance, addressee |
| 648 | IF the gender of a 3rd person personal pronoun does not vary when used in reference to the addressee(s), in a language which has distinctions of gender in the 3rd person personal pronouns, THEN it corresponds to that of the noun or the head noun phrase which the pronoun replaced. | inflection, syntax | implication | personal pronoun, 3 person, gender, noun, addressee |
| 649 | Variation of gender so as to employ one which does not correspond to the notional category of the sex of the referent is not used for showing greater respect than reference with the usual gender. | inflection, semantics | unconditional | personal pronoun, gender, noun, honorific |
| 650 | In a language in which categories of proximity are employed to show degrees of respect or social distance, the one used to indicate greater physical distance within discourse is also used to indicate greater respect or social distance. | inflection, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | personal pronoun, proximity, respect, social distance |
| 651 | In a language in which categories of definiteness are employed to show degrees of respect or social distance, the one used as indefinite or least definite is also used to indicate greater respect or social distance. | inflection, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | personal pronoun, definite, indefinite, respect, social distance |
| 653 | IF there is stative-active case marking in 3rd person, THEN there is also stative-active marking in 1st and 2nd persons. | inflection | implication | case, stative, active, person, 1, 2, 3 |
| 657 | IF there are pejorative pronominal affixes, THEN there are honorific ones. | inflection, semantics | implication | pronoun, affix, pejorative, honorific |
| 658 | In languages in which categories of proximity, inclusiveness and definiteness are employed to convey social meaning, non-proximate, exclusive, and indefinite or impersonal usually indicate greater respect or social distance than do the opposing ones; inanimate and non-human typically indicate less respect than do their counterparts, when used with social meaning. | inflection, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | proximity, inclusiveness, definiteness, social distance, respect |