Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
789 entries · page 9 of 16
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 676 | IF there is person-number distinction in indicative forms, THEN there is the same distinction in imperative forms. | inflection | implication | mood, indicative, imperative, person, number |
| 687 | IF there is morphological (suffixal) negation, THEN word order is verb-final or free. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, verb-initial, free, negation, affix-order, suffix |
| 697 | IF there is 1st person singular in the imperative paradigm, then there is a form(s) of 1st person plural as well. |
inflection | implication | imperative, mood, 1 person, number, plural, singular |
| 716 | IF any further grammatical oppositions are expressed in forms marked for dual number, THEN the same oppositions will also be expressed in forms marked for plural number. | inflection | implication | number, dual, plural, inclusive, exclusive, gender, case |
| 721 | IF there is a deictic salience of the 2nd person, THEN there is a category of inclusive. | inflection, syntax | implication | person hierarchy, 2 person, inclusive |
| 733 | Whenever there is person agreement in intransitive main clauses, IF intransitive predicates other than those denoting events agree in person, THEN those denoting events will also agree in person. |
inflection, syntax, semantics | implication | agreement, person, transitivity, event predicate |
| 734 | IF predicates are encoded independently, i.e., without the support of a copula, substantive verb, or locative verb, THEN this encoding will always comprise event predicates. | inflection, syntax, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | copula, zero, event predicate |
| 737 | IF a zero copula is allowed at all, THEN this option will be minimally selected for predicate nominal sentences in the present tense with a 3rd person subject. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | copula, zero, predicate nominal, tense, present, 3rd person, subject |
| 738 | If predicate nominals are encoded verbally, THEN predicative adjectives are encoded verbally. | inflection, syntax | implication | word class, predicate nominal, predicative adjective |
| 739 | If predicative adjectives are encoded nonverbally, then predicate nominals are encoded nonverbally. | inflection, syntax | implication | word class, predicate nominal, predicative adjective |
| 740 | IF there is a nominal-verbal split in encoding property concepts, THEN Human Propensity predicates will be encoded by the verbal strategy. | inflection, syntax, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | word class, adjective, verb, noun, property concepts, human propensity |
| 741 | Hierarchy of Property Concepts: Human Propensity > Physical Property > Dimension / Colour > Value / Age / Form > Material / Gender When languages encode these types of property concepts by different word classes, wherever the cut-off point, IF a concept type is encoded nominally, THEN all concept types lower on the hierarchy are also encoded nominally; and IF a concept type is encoded verbally, THEN all concept types higher on the hierarchy are also encoded verbally; IF any concept types are encoded through a distinct word class of adjectives, THEN this will include those from the middle of the hierarchy. |
inflection, syntax, semantics | implicational hierarchy | word class, verb, noun, adjective, property concepts |
| 742 | IF there is a nominal-verbal split in encoding property concepts, THEN items which belong to the adjectival categories of Material and Gender will be be encoded by the non-verbal strategy. | inflection, syntax, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | word class, adjective, property concepts, material, gender |
| 743 | IF there is verbal-nominal switching for adjectives, THEN the nominal option will always encode the more time-stable reading. | inflection, syntax, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | word class, time stability, adjective, verb, noun |
| 744 | IF there is nominal-locational switching for adjectives, THEN the nominal option will encode the more time-stable reading. | inflection, syntax, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | word class, time stability, adjective, noun, locational |
| 745 | IF the nominal strategy partakes in an Adjective-switch, and IF that switch is monitored by Time Stability, THEN the nominal strategy will encode the more time-stable option. | inflection, syntax, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | word class, time stability, adjective, noun |
| 746 | IF there is nominal/locational switching for predicate nominals, THEN there is either nominal/locational switching for predicate adjectives, or complete locational take-over for predicate adjectives. | inflection, syntax, semantics | implication | word class, predicate nominal, predicate adjective, locational |
| 749 | IF there is an encoding of a tense opposition in a verbal system, THEN this opposition will hold between Past and non-Past. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | tense, past, non-past |
| 750 | IF there is an encoding of aspectual opposition in a verbal system, THEN this opposition will hold between Imperfective and Perfective. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | aspect, perfective, imperfective |
| 751 | IF nominal encoding of predicative adjectives is allowed, THEN there is nominal merging. | inflection, syntax | implication | encoding, predicative adjective, nominal merging |
| 753 | IF there is conditioned multiple nominal/locational switching, THEN the nominal strategy is limited to the Present Tense. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | multiple-switching, encoding, present tense |
| 754 | IF there is tense-induced multiple switching, THEN category switching (if any) is restricted to Present Tense. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | multiple-switching, present tense |
| 802 | IF there is non-tensedness, THEN adjectives are verby. IF adjectives are verby, THEN there is non-tensedness. |
inflection, syntax | mutual implication | predicative adjective, verb, tensed |
| 803 | IF a language is isolating (with bound morphology lacking), THEN there tend to be noun classifiers rather than noun classes. IF there is agglutination or flexion (in languages with rich inflectional systems), THEN there tend to be noun classes rather than noun classifiers |
inflection, syntax | implication | agglutination, flexion, isolation, classifier, noun class |
| 804 | IF there is complex overall morphology, THEN there tend to be noun classes. | inflection, syntax | implication | agglutination, flexion, noun class |
| 826 | IF postnominal relative clauses contain a distinctive verbal affix, THEN the verb appears in clause-initial position. |
inflection, syntax | implication | relative clause, order, verbal affix, verb-initial |
| 840 | IF basic order is VSO, THEN there is very likely to be verbal person-number inflection or both person-number and tense-aspect-mood inflection, but not verbal tense-aspect-mood without person-number inflection. | syntax, inflection | implication | order, VSO, verb, person, number, tense, aspect, mood |
| 895 | See Graphics for Moderate rhythmic holism | inflection, prosodic phonology | mutual implication | syllable structure, stress, vowel harmony, vowel system |
| 896 | IF there is head-marking, THEN adjectives tend to be similar to verbs. | inflection, syntax | implication | head-marking, adjective, verb |
| 897 | IF there is dependent-marking, THEN adjectives tend to be similar to nouns. | inflection, syntax | implication | dependent-marking, adjective, noun |
| 898 | Provided there is actancy variation in terms of tense, accusative constructions will always be found in the future/present/imperfective while ergative constructions occur in the perfect/past/perfective tenses. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | alignment, ergative-absolutive, nominative-accusative, tense, present, past, future, perfect, perfective, imperfective |
| 899 | There is an affinity between aspect and object individuation, insofar as the imperfective (progressive, frequentative, etc.) aspect often goes hand in hand with an indefinite, partitive or non-referential object. | inflection, syntax | mutual implication | aspect, imperfect, object, indefinite, partitive, non-referential, incorporation |
| 900 | Whenever there is an opposition between a subjective and an objective conjugation, the former will be used with non-individuated or non-thematic objects, and the latter with individuated or thematic objects. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | conjugation, objective, subjective, object |
| 902 | Whenever indirect constructions are in opposition with direct constructions, the former will be found with progressive aspect and partially involved objects and the latter with non-progressive aspect and totally involved objects. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | indirect construction, aspect, progressive, object |
| 903 | The antipassive is correlative with the imperfective aspect and low-level object individuation. Whenever antipassive constructions are in opposition with active constructions, the former will be found with the imperfective aspect and low-level object individuation and the latter with perfective aspect and highly individuated objects. |
inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | antipassive, imperfective, aspect, object |
| 904 | The more firmly individuated (definite, human, etc.) the agent and the object and/or the more complete (semantically pregnant, perfective, real. etc.) the process, the greater the chances the sentence will adopt the more grammatically transitive construction. See Graphics |
inflection, syntax | implication | definiteness, animacy, perfective, affectedness, transitivity |
| 907 | IF noun phrases take case marking when occurring in core relations governed by verbs and other lexical expressions, THEN they will also do so when in construction with adpositions in syntactically more peripheral relations. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, adposition |
| 909 | IF case is marked by means of segmental modification, THEN case will also be marked by means of affixation. | inflection | implication | case, affix |
| 910 | IF adpositions encode the syntactic core relations of subject, object, and perhaps attribute, THEN no grammatical relations are encoded by morphological case. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, adposition |
| 911 | IF Location (adverb) is encoded by the verbal strategy, THEN all intransitive main predicates will be encoded by that strategy. IF Class Membership (noun) is encoded by the verbal strategy, THEN Property (adjective) will be encoded by that strategy. |
inflection, syntax | implicational hierarchy | verbalization, hierarchy, verb, adjective, noun, adverb |
| 913 | IF there are speech act constructions in certain subordinate clauses, THEN there are speech act constructions in main clauses. | inflection, syntax | implication | speech act construction, clause, main, subordinate |
| 914 | IF there is no direct object, THEN the embedded subject appears as direct object. IF there is direct object, but no indirect object, THEN the embedded subject appears as indirect object. IF there are both direct and indirect objects, THEN the embedded subject appears as one of the oblique cases (i.e. neither subject nor direct object nor indirect object) |
inflection, syntax | implicational hierarchy | causative, hierarchy, subject, direct object, indirect object, oblique object |
| 915 | IF verbs agree with inanimate NPs, THEN they also agree with animate NPs of the same grammatical relation, or even of a grammatical relation lower on the relational hierarchy which otherwise determines agreement preferences. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, animacy, grammatical relations |
| 916 | IF a plurality split occurs, THEN all NPs to the left from it will have the distinction of plurality and those to the right from it will lack it. | inflection | implicational hierarchy | hierarchy, animacy, split, number, plural |
| 917 | Whenever there is a plurality split in lexical nouns, the split in the 3rd person pronoun (if there is one) will be at the same place or lower down in the animacy hierarchy. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | animacy hierarchy, split, number, plural, person pronoun, 3, noun |
| 950 | IF either inflectional morphology or derivational morphology is served by prosodic rules of stress shift, then typically either new phonological rules emerge or old phonological rules are put to new uses, or both. | phonology, word formation, inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | stress |
| 952 | IF direct and indirect/non-direct objects can be distinguished paradigmatically, THEN they can be distinguished syntagmatically as well, but not vice versa. | inflection, syntax | implication | grammatical relations, object, indirect, non-direct, direct |
| 953 | IF direct and indirect/non-direct objects are distinguished in their coding, THEN they also differ in their syntactic behavior (but not necessarily the reverse). | inflection, syntax | implication | grammatical relations, object, indirect, non-direct, direct |
| 954 | IF direct and indirect/non-direct objects are syntagmatically in any other kind of construction, THEN they are distinguished in all ditransitive constructions. | inflection, syntax | implication | grammatical relations, object, indirect, non-direct, direct, ditransitive |
| 955 | IF direct and indirect/non-direct objects differ in their overt coding of whatever kind (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 |