Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
157 entries · page 1 of 4
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | IF alignment is ergative for some rule(s), THEN alignment tends to be accusative for other rules, or also for the same rule(s) in other contexts. | morphology, syntax | implication | alignment, ergative-absolutive, nominative-accusative, split |
| 11 | IF basic order is consistently OV, THEN the morphology tends to be agglutinative. | morphology, syntax | implication | order, OV, agglutination |
| 13 | IF basic order is consistently VO, THEN the morphology tends to be flexive. | morphology, syntax | implication | order, VO, flexion |
| 64 | IF alignment is (exclusively or overwhelmingly) nominative-accusative, THEN the causee of causative verbs derived from transitive verbs is an oblique object; IF alignment is (exclusively or overwhelmingly) ergative-absolutive, THEN the causee of causative verbs derived from transitive verbs is a direct object. |
morphology, syntax | implication | alignment, ergative-absolutive, nominative-accusative, causative, object, direct, oblique <br> |
| 136 | IF one of the relations of (i) alienability, (ii) inalienability, and (iii) classification is realized formally by a certain construction, THEN no relations below it on the hierarchy may be realized by a different construction used for relations higher on the hierarchy. LIKEWISE: IF a particular construction encodes a semantic relation of a certain type, THEN no construction for a relation below it will encode a semantic relation higher on the scale. |
morphology, syntax, semantics | implicational hierarchy | possession, alienable, inalienable, classification, compound, head-marking, dependent-marking<br> |
| 188 | IF there is incorporation of the nominal subject into the verb, THEN there is also incorporation of the direct object. | morphology, syntax | implication | incorporation, subject, direct object, verb |
| 219 | Provided there are non-root as well as root morphemes, non-root morphemes have a more limited inventory of phonemes than root-morphemes and are on average shorter than root-morphemes. | phonology, morphology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | morpheme, root, non-root, phoneme inventory, length |
| 221 | Every free root morpheme (in contrast to non-root morphemes) is expressed with more than one consonant phoneme. | phonology, morphology | unconditional | root, non-root, phoneme, consonant |
| 223 | IF there are phonemic alternations in root morphemes, THEN there are [the same?] phonemic alternations in non-root morphemes as well. | phonology, morphology | implication | root, non-root, alternation |
| 227 | If there are only affixes which derive causatives form intransitive verbs, THEN these affixes will not have a permissive meaning. | morphology, semantics | implication | causative, transitivity, permissive |
| 246 | IF constituent order is free, THEN words tend to be longer. | morphology, syntax | implication | word length, order |
| 258 | IF alignment is predominantly ergative, THEN (i) subject is initial and verb final, (ii) subject and predicate are separated intonationally, (iii) object tends to be morphologically unmarked, and (iv) subject has a special morphological marker. |
phonology, morphology, syntax | implication | alignment, ergative, order, subject, direct object, intonation |
| 268 | IF any other meanings are expresssed by productive reduplication, THEN the meaning ‘change of degree or quantity’ is also expressed thus. | morphology, semantics | implication | reduplication |
| 275 | IF a decrease of quantity or degree can be expressed by means of reduplication, THEN an increase of quantity or degree can also be expressed by reduplication. | morphology, semantics | implication | reduplication |
| 286 | IF there are tri-valent causatives derived from bi-valent non-causative verbs, THEN there must also be bi-valent causatives derived from uni-valent non-causatives. | morphology, semantics | implication | verb, causative, valency |
| 287 | IF a causative morpheme is unproductive in relation to transitives, forming from them a relatively small (closed) group of trivalent causatives, THEN verbs denoting abstract action and verbs of concrete action denoting the consumption of food will usually be among these transitive bases. |
morphology, semantics | implication | transitivity, causative, valency |
| 288 | IF there is a verb morpheme with the meaning of dativus commodi (applicative), THEN there will be a causative morpheme as well. | morphology, semantics | implication | verb, causative, dative, applicative |
| 289 | IF a causative morpheme can express permissiveness, THEN it can usually also express factitivity. | morphology, semantics | implication | causative, permissive, factitive |
| 295 | IF basic order is VSO, SVO, or SOV, THEN the verb has prefixes and suffixes. | morphology, syntax | implication | order, VSO, SVO, SOV, prefix, suffix |
| 300 | Reduplication is used as a productive grammatical way of word formation and inflection. | morphology | unconditional | reduplication |
| 359 | IF an incorporated nominal direct object precedes the verb stem, THEN the autonomous subject precedes the predicate. | morphology, syntax | implication | order, incorporation, verb, subject, direct object |
| 360 | IF an incorporated direct object follows the verb stem, THEN the autonomous subject follows the predicate. | morphology, syntax | implication | incorporation, verb, order, direct object, subject |
| 364 | IF morphology is flexive or introflexive, THEN word forms tend to be two or three syllables long. IF morphology is agglutinative or incorporating, THEN word forms tend to be longer. IF bound morphology is lacking (i.e. a language is isolating), THEN word forms tend to be shorter. |
phonology, morphology, lexicon | mutual implication | flexion, introflexion, agglutination, incorporation, isolation, word length, syllable |
| 367 | IF morphology is agglutinative, THEN derivational affixes tend to have more complex syllabic structure. IF morphology is flexive, THEN derivational affixes tend to have less complex syllabic structure. |
phonology, morphology | mutual implication | affix, syllable, agglutination, flexion |
| 368 | IF morphology is agglutinative, THEN the phonological structure of affixes tends to be very similar to that of stems. IF morphology is flexive, THEN affixes tend to be shorter, structurally simpler, and more uniform in their phonemic make-up than stems. |
phonology, morphology | mutual implication | phonology, affix, stem, agglutination, flexion |
| 369 | IF there is vowel harmony, THEN morphology tends to be agglutinative. | phonology, morphology | mutual implication | agglutination, vowel harmony |
| 370 | IF morphology is agglutinative, THEN casual/fast speech shows less phonological reduction than if morphology is flexive. | phonology, morphology, syntax | implication | agglutination, flexion, fast speech, agreement |
| 373 | IF morphology is agglutinative, THEN syllabic structure is simple (syllables are short), and vice versa. IF morphology is flexive, THEN syllabic structure is complex (syllables are long), and vice versa. |
phonology, morphology | mutual implication | agglutination, flexion, syllable structure |
| 374 | IF there are high syllable-per-sentence and high syllable-per-word ratios & simple syllables & agglutinative morphology, THEN basic word order will be (S)OV. IF there are low syllable-per-sentence and low syllable-per-word ratios & complex syllables & flexive [or no] morphology, THEN basic word order will be (S)V(S)O. |
phonology, morphology, syntax | implication | agglutination, flexion, syllable, order, complexity |
| 397 | The more frequent and syntagmatically simple forms show paradigmatically complexity, the less frequent and syntagmatically complex forms show less paradigmatic complexity. | morphology | unconditional | frequency, complexity |
| 398 | IF an affix conditions outwards, THEN an affix of the same type may in some other context condition inwards. | morphology | implication | affix, allomorphy |
| 445 | IF morphologyis agglutinative, THEN there is complement-balancing and complement-deranking. IF morphology is flexive, THEN there is complement-balancing. |
morphology, syntax | implication | agglutination, flexion, complement-deranking, complement-balancing |
| 505 | IF there are discontinuous affixes, THEN there is prefixing and/or suffixing. |
morphology | implication | affix-order, prefix, suffix |
| 506 | IF there are only suffixes, THEN there will be postpositions; IF there are only prefixes, THEN there will be prepositions. |
morphology, syntax | implication | prefix, suffix, postposition, preposition |
| 507 | IF both the derivation and inflection follow the root or they both precede the root, THEN the derivation is always between the root and the inflection. | morphology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | root, order |
| 522 | It is possible but not necessary for the adnominal and pronominal demonstratives stems to be fully or partially identical. | morphology, syntax | unconditional | demonstrative |
| 582 | IF there is a distinction between count and mass nouns, THEN NPs are configurational. IF NPs are configurational, THEN there is a distinction between count and mass nouns. |
morphology, syntax, semantics | mutual implication | count noun, mass noun, configurational NP |
| 586 | IF morphemes are semantically less complex than others, THEN they will not systematically be more complex in phonetic form than these. | phonology, morphology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | morpheme, complexity, semantics, iconicity |
| 592 | All languages include utterance pairs where inclusion relations between semantic representations are paralleled by corresponding inclusion relations in morpheme structure; but in no language are all meaning inclusion relations so paralleled (e. g. no language has a fully iconic numeral system where all numerals are expressed by the repetition of the morpheme ‘one’). | morphology, syntax, semantics | unconditional | morpheme, complexity, iconicity, numeral |
| 594 | The repetition of syntactic constituents is used in all languages to express continuity of action (e.g. 'he walked and walked') and/or emphasis (e. g. 'very, very bright'). | morphology, syntax, semantics | unconditional | repetition, emphasis, iterative |
| 596 | There are some utterances where simultaneity of morphemes symbolizes semantic relatedness. (Cf. the placement of meaning-bearing suprasegmental features). | morphology, semantics | unconditional | morpheme, suprasegmental |
| 625 | Distributive-key quantifier words and their ordinary counterparts are not morphologically related. |
morphology | unconditional | quantifier, distributive |
| 631 | Distributive-share quantifier words are formed from their ordinary counterparts by morphological process. | morphology | unconditional | quantifier, distributive |
| 632 | IF reduplication is used to form portmanteau from ordinary quantifier words, THEN distributive-share quantifier words are formed by reduplication as well. | morphology | implication | quantifier, distributive, reduplication, portmanteau |
| 633 | IF pluralization is used to form portmanteau from ordinary quantifier words, THEN distributive-share quantifier words are formed by pluralization as well. | morphology | implication | quantifier, distributive, pluralization, portmanteau |
| 655 | IF there is polysynthesis, THEN the consonant-vowel ratio is comparatively high. | phonology, morphology, syntax | mutual implication | consonant, vowel, ratio, polysynthesis |
| 660 | There is no reduplication pattern where the constituent to be reduplicated may be freely chosen from among the included subconstituents. | morphology | unconditional | reduplication |
| 661 | There is no reduplication pattern where the number of repetitions is freely chosen from the set of all numbers. | morphology | unconditional | reduplication |
| 662 | There is no reduplication pattern which would not involve reference to lexical identity. | morphology | unconditional | reduplication |
| 663 | There is no reduplication pattern that would involve reference to phonological properties other than syllable number, consonantality-vowelhood, and absolute linear position. | phonology, morphology | unconditional | reduplication |