Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
543 entries · page 2 of 11
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 659 | The more numerous the principal phonemes and the longer the sequence units (phrases, words, or morphs), the lower the probability of homophony. | phonology | mutual implication | homophony, phoneme inventory, word length |
| 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 |
| 665 | IF yes-no questions do not have a rising terminal, higher pitched or special stress contour, THEN there are postpositions. | syntax, prosodic phonology | implication | interrogative sentence, yes-no question, intonation, stress, postposition |
| 666 | IF there are tag questions with nonrising (or not higher pitched or stressed)contours, THEN there are tag questions with rising (etc.) contours. | syntax, prosodic phonology | implication | interrogative sentence, tag question, intonation |
| 675 | see Graphics | morphology, syntax, prosodic phonology | mutual implication | order, noun, adjective, attributive, verb, object, topic, comment, preposition, postposition dependent-marking, analytic, synthetic morphosyntax, word accent, compound accent, phrase accent, syllable, length, vocalism, timing, sterss, vowel inventory, noun class, gender, article |
| 685 | IF negation is morphological, THEN a. portmanteau realization of Neg; b. prosodic unity of Neg and verb (viz. if they "share" one word stress); c. placement of Neg close to the root of the verb (i.e. between the root and other inflectional morphemes); d. morphophonemic alternation in the Negation morpheme. |
morphology, prosodic phonology | implication | negation, prosodic phrasing, stress, portmanteau, morpheme, order, alternation |
| 686 | IF negation is syntactic, THEN a. moveability of Negation; b. prosodic independence (e.g. the Negation morpheme carries a stress of its own); c. in written language: orthographic separation; d. the Negation morpheme by itself carries inflectional affixes. |
syntax, prosodic phonology | implication | negation, prosodic phrasing, stress, inflection |
| 688 | All languages have the place distinctions of high and low and of front and back in their vowel systems; hence vowel systems minimally include /i, a, u/. | phonology | unconditional | vowel, high, low, front, back |
| 689 | IF [w] becomes a fricative or determines the place of articulation of adjacent fricatives, THEN it shows itself primarily as a labial. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | fricative, labial, place of articulation |
| 690 | CV (Consonant + Vowel) is the only universal model of the syllable. There are languages lacking syllables with initial vowels and/or syllables with final consonants, but there are no languages devoid of syllables with initial consonants or syllables with final vowels. | phonology | unconditional | syllable, initial, final, consonant, vowel |
| 692 | IF clusters of obstruent consonants which are different only with regard to their belonging to different ‘Lokalisierungsreihen’ (e.g. sp, tr, kl, rs) are possible, THEN clusters of two obstruent consonants (e.g. pt, xs, sf) are also possible. | phonology | implication | consonant cluster, obstruent, Lokalisierungsreihe |
| 693 | IF consonant clusters occur in initial and final position of words, THEN these same consonant clusters also occur in medial position, between vowels. | phonology | implication | consonant cluster, initial position, final position, medial position |
| 694 | IF there is a heterorganic cluster of an obstruent consonant and a nasal consonant (e.g. bn), THEN there will be a heterorganic cluster of a voiced obstruent consonant and a nasal (e.g. dn). IF there is a heterorganic cluster of a voiced obstruent consonant and a nasal (e.g. dn), THEN there will be a heterorganic cluster of a voiceless obstruent consonant and a nasal (e.g. pm). IF there is a heterorganic cluster of a voiceless obstruent consonant and a nasal (e.g. pm), THEN there will be a heterorganic cluster of a voiceless obstruent consonant and a liquid (e.g. pl). |
phonology | implication | consonant cluster, phoneme order, nasals, liquid, initial, heterorganic |
| 695 | When nasal consonants assimilate to a following consonant, then they assimilate in place of articulation (rather than in manner). | phonology | unconditional | assimilation, consonant, nasal, place of articulation |
| 696 | The two intonation shapes that are found everywhere are fall and rise, with their targets, low and high. The meanings are as uniform as the shapes: falls for ‘being through’, rises for ‘not being through’. Spreading from each is a net of metaphor. ‘Not being through’ is akin to ‘being aroused’, and since we are most aroused by what is most important, a high pitch becomes the normal sign of importance. | phonology, semantics | unconditional | intonation |
| 698 | IF there are more than three vowels, THEN / ¥ / or / ™ / will be among them. | phonology | implication | vowel |
| 699 | IF there are more than four vowels, THEN / ε / and generally also / C / will be among them. | phonology | implication | vowel |
| 700 | IF there are more than five vowels, THEN / C / and also either / ¥ / or / e/ (generally the former) will be among them. | phonology | implication | vowel |
| 701 | IF there are more than six vowels, THEN /e, o/ or /i, E/ will be among them. (The types /i, E/ may be represented by /ü, ö/.) |
phonology | implication | vowel |
| 702 | IF there are more than seven vowels, THEN /e/ will be among them. | phonology | implication | vowel |
| 703 | IF there are more than eight vowels, THEN /o/ will be among them. | phonology | implication | vowel |
| 705 | IF there are two or more interior vowels, THEN at least one of them must be high. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | vowel, high, interior |
| 706 | IF there are n vowels in an interior column, THEN there will at most be n vowels in the front or back columns. | phonology | implication | vowel, interior, front, back |
| 707 | IF there are n height distinctions in back vowels, THEN there are not more than n distinctions in front vowels. | phonology | implication | height, front, back, vowel |
| 708 | There is a tendency for high and low short vowels to be more central than the corresponding long vowels. | phonology | unconditional | vowel, high, low, short, central, long |
| 709 | IF there are n nasal vowels, THEN there are at least n oral vowels. | phonology | implication | vowel, nasal, oral |
| 710 | When a nasal vowel system is smaller than the corresponding basic vowel system, it is most often a mid vowel that is missing from the nasal system. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | vowel, nasal, mid |
| 711 | IF morphology is agglutinative, THEN (stress) accent will be demarcating, falling on word edges (either on initial or final syllables), rather than be free and centralizing, and there consequently will not be much phonological reduction of initial or final syllables. |
phonology, morphology | implication | agglutination, accent, reduction |
| 712 | Marked tones tend to be high rather than low. | phonology | unconditional | tone, markedness |
| 713 | IF morphology is agglutinative, THEN there is vowel harmony. IF morphology is flexive, THEN there is stress accent. |
prosodic phonology, morphology | implication | agglutination, flexion, vowel harmony, stress accent |
| 715 | IF there is no opposition of front and back fricatives, THEN the s-sound is not sharply differentiated from an ∫-articulation. | phonology | implication | front, back, fricative |
| 717 | There will be no more than five phonological tone levels (underlyingly). | phonology | unconditional | tone |
| 718 | The larger the number of (phonological) tone levels, the larger the pitch range they occupy. | phonology | mutual implication | tone, tone levels, pitch range |
| 719 | More frequently, when tone is privative, high tone is marked relative to low tone, rather than the other way round. | phonology | unconditional | tone, level tone, high, low, markedness |
| 720 | Among CENTRAL and EXTREME tones, CENTRAL are usually unmarked and EXTREME marked. | phonology | unconditional | tone, central, extreme, markedness |
| 722 | IF a sequence of unlike tones on a word or morpheme is permitted, THEN like tones on a word or morpheme will be permitted as well. | phonology | implication | tone, level tone, contour tone |
| 723 | IF successive shifts of tone level in opposite directions within a word are permitted, THEN words with only one shift of tone level are permitted as well. | phonology | implication | tone, level shift |
| 724 | IF there are contour tones, THEN there are level tones. | phonology | implication | tone, contour tone, level tone |
| 725 | IF there are complex tonal contours, THEN there will also be simpler ones. | phonology | implication | tone, contour tone, complex, simple |
| 726 | IF non-tonal phonological properties are assigned opposite values to an adjacent occurrence of that property within a morpheme, then the assignment of tones (provided the language is tonal) will also be governed by rules of polarity. | phonology | implication | tone, morpheme |
| 727 | IF an obstruent is voiceless, THEN after it the pitch range is descending; IF an obstruent is voiced, THEN after it the pitch range is rising. |
phonology | implication | obstruent, voice, pitch |
| 728 | Laterals [liquids] tend to occur in the neighborhood of consonants whereas nonlaterals tend to occur in the neighborhood of vowels. | phonology | unconditional | liquid, lateral, consonant, vowel |
| 729 | IF a vowel is low (open), THEN it will have lower pitch than that of a high (close) vowel (other things being equal). | phonology | implication | vowel, low, high, pitch |
| 730 | IF a vowel is on a low tone, THEN it will be longer than a vowel on a high tone (other things being equal). | phonology | implication | vowel, low, high, tone |
| 731 | IF a vowel is on a rising tone, THEN it is longer than a vowel on a falling tone (other thing being equal). | phonology | implication | vowel, length, rising, falling, tone |
| 732 | When marked phonation types are restricted in distribution to certain tones, those tones are in the highest or lowest part of the scale used by the language concerned. |
phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | tone, marked phonation type |
| 755 | IF there are glottalic obstruents and sonants, THEN the ejective obstruent is unvoiced. | phonology | implication | glottalic, ejective, sonant, obstruent, voice |
| 756 | A contrast between five basic vowel qualities is the norm for a human language, and in general the most common systems are those with close to this number of basic vowels. | phonology | unconditional | vowel |
| 757 | IF an obstruent is injective, THEN it will most likely be bilabial. | phonology | implication | consonant, injective, obstruent, bilabial |
| 758 | Preferences regarding point of articulation for glottalic obstruents are as follows: injectives tend to have front articulation, ejectives back articulation. | phonology | unconditional | injective, ejective, glottalic, obstruent |