Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
543 entries · page 7 of 11
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1076 | Syllabification across word boundaries is likelier when stress is non-demarcative than when it is demarcative. |
prosodic phonology | implication | stress, syllabification, word boundary |
| 1077 | Syllabification across a word boundary may be less likely in a language with initial stress than in a language with final stress. | prosodic phonology | implication | stress, syllabification, word boundary |
| 1078 | IF accent (word or phrase?) is based on pitch/tone, THEN accent is initial. IF accent is based on duration, THEN accent is final. |
prosodic phonology | implication | accent, tone, pitch, syllable, rhythm |
| 1080 | Aspiration occurs most frequently after voiceless stops. | phonology | unconditional | aspiration, stop, voice |
| 1081 | IF there are voiced stops with “murmured” aspiration, THEN there are most likely normal voiced aspirates. | phonology | implication | aspiration, stop, voice |
| 1082 | In languages with distinctive aspiration, when aspiration is phonemic, it is often more marked than when it is merely allophonic. | phonology | implication | aspiration, stop |
| 1083 | Aspiration tends to be stronger in initial and/or pre-tonic position antevocalically. | phonology | implication | aspiration, stop |
| 1084 | Duration of aspiration varies according to place of articulation: k > t > p. | phonology | implicational hierarchy | aspiration, place of articulation |
| 1085 | Where contrastive aspiration is neutralized before liquids and nasals, the occurring phone is not aspirated or if released not to the same degree of phonemic aspiration. | phonology | implication | aspiration, liquid, nasal |
| 1088 | IF there is not a full six-position stop paradigm (/p, t, k, b, d, g/), THEN the gaps are most likely to occur at /g/, then /p/, followed by /d/ and finally /b/. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | stop, paradigm |
| 1089 | IF there is a voicing contrast in stops, THEN /t/ and /k/ are present. | phonology | implication | stop, voice |
| 1090 | IF a low vowel in nasalized, THEN it is raised. | phonology | implication | vowel, nasalization |
| 1091 | The general tendency for a cluster of consonant and nasal is either to (i) retain the nasality (by weakening or deleting the consonant), or (ii) to lose the nasality (when the preceding consonant is stronger than the nasal). | phonology | unconditional | consonant cluster, nasal |
| 1092 | IF a nasal system has more than two place of articulation contrasts, THEN it will probably have a palatal or velar nasal, or both. | phonology | implication | nasal, consonant, palatal, velar |
| 1093 | Nearly all languages have contrasting labial and dental nasals. | phonology | unconditional | nasal, consonant, labial, dental |
| 1094 | IF there are any place of articulation contrasts in a nasal stop system, THEN there are at least as many place of articulation contrasts in the oral stop system. | phonology | implication | nasal, oral, stop |
| 1095 | IF there are n stop and affricate positions, THEN there will not be more than n nasal positions. | phonology | implication | nasal, oral, stop, affricate |
| 1096 | Nasal stop systems always have voiced members. | phonology | unconditional | nasal, stop |
| 1097 | IF there is a contrast in glottal feature, length, or other secondary articulation, THEN that feature is also contrastive in the oral stop system (but not necessarily the fricative system). | phonology | implication | glottal, oral, stop |
| 1098 | Nasal consonants tend to share place of articulation properties with stop systems, and glottal features, syllabicity, and accent bearing with liquids. | phonology | unconditional | nasal, consonant, stop, liquid |
| 1100 | (holistic) Type A vs. Type B |
phonology, morphology, syntax | mutual implication | nasal vowel, syllable, order, attributive, adjective, noun, prefix, suffix, preposition, postposition, serial verb, number, compounding, consonant, agreement, subject |
| 1101 | IF there is a high number of vowel distinctions which are perceptually close to each other, THEN the addition of distinctive vowel nasalization creates an unstable system leading to elimination of distinctively nasal vowels or reducing the number of oral vowels (which is rare). | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | nasal, vowel, nasalization |
| 1102 | IF there are no consonant clusters, THEN the position of minimum contrast is word-final. | phonology | implication | consonant cluster |
| 1103 | IF there are nasal vowels, THEN there are at least three, one of which is always a low vowel [ã]. | phonology | implication | nasal, vowel |
| 1163 | Indefinite articles are generally short; that is, they never have more than two syllables. | phonology, syntax | unconditional | indefinite article |
| 1240 | IF there are initial or final clusters, THEN there will be medial clusters as well. | phonology | implication | consonant cluster |
| 1241 | IF there is uniform syllable division, THEN there is no VC.V division. | phonology | implication | syllable structure |
| 1242 | IF there are final consonants, THEN there is no uniform V.CCV division of two-segment clusters. | phonology | implication | syllable structure, consonant cluster |
| 1243 | Word-Terminal Condition: IF an intersyllabic sequence is divisible into occurring word-initial and word-final clusters, THEN the perceived boundary does not fall between non-occurring clusters. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | syllable, consonant cluster |
| 1244 | IF stops are the only final word margin, THEN they will be glottal stops. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | word boundary |
| 1245 | IF there are no initial consonantal clusters, THEN there is no V.CCCV division of two-segment clusters. | phonology | implication | syllable structure, consonantal cluster |
| 1246 | The likelihood of initial clusters is greater for languages with final consonants than for languages without final consonants, even greater for languages with final clusters. The likelihood for final clustering is greater for languages with initial clusters than for languages without. |
phonology | unconditional | consonant cluster |
| 1247 | The loss of all a language’s initial vowels (or prothesis of a consonant before them) is significantly less likely than a language with no initial vowels acquiring them by consonant loss or vowel prothesis. | phonology | implication | initial vowel, consonant |
| 1248 | The loss of intervocalic consonants is a more frequently occurring process than loss of initial consonants; hiatus producing more intervocalic loss is less frequent but probably still more frequent than initial loss. | phonology | unconditional | consonant, hiatus |
| 1249 | The complete elimination of a language’s initial vowels, whether by loss or by consonant problems, is less likely than the complete elimination of a language’s sequences of syllable nuclei. | phonology | unconditional | syllable structure, consonant, vowel |
| 1250 | IF syllables containing sequences of n consonants are to be found as syllabic types, THEN sequences of n-1 consonants are also to be found in the corresponding position (prevocalic or post vocalic) except that CV → V ... [and VC → V] ... do not hold [V(C) → CVC]. | phonology | implication | syllable structure, consonant, vowel |
| 1251 | IF tone spreading takes place from a mid tone into a following low, THEN tone spreading also takes place from a high tone into a following low tone. | prosodic phonology | implication | tone, tone spreading |
| 1253 | The more to the left on the hierarchy a consonant is, the greater is its tone-raising effect. The more to the right a consonant is, the greater is its tone-lowering effect: implosive > voiceless aspirated > voiceless unaspirated > sonant > voiced obstruent > breathy |
prosodic phonology | implicational hierarchy | consonant, tone, raising, lowering, hierarchy |
| 1254 | Sonants tend to participate in consonant gradation much more than other phonemes. | phonology | implication | consonant gradation |
| 1255 | IF consonant gradation plays a role in the grammar, THEN it serves the function to identify nouns. | phonology, syntax | implication | consonant gradation |
| 1256 | Front consonants are less prone to develop in accordance with consonant gradation than back consonants. | phonology | implication | consonant gradation |
| 1257 | Anterior consonants are less likely to participate in consonant gradation than posterior consonants. | phonology | implication | consonant gradation |
| 1258 | Labiovelar stops are less likely to participate in consonant gradation than other stops of the same series. | phonology | implication | consonant gradation |
| 1259 | The less sonorous a vowel (or class of vowels), the more prone it will be to assimilate; and conversely, the more sonorous it is, the more resistant it will be to assimilation. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, sonority |
| 1260 | High vowels tend to assimilate more readily and earlier than low vowels. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony |
| 1261 | IF there is assimilation of low vowels, THEN there is assimilation of high vowels. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, height |
| 1262 | Unstressed vowels are more likely to assimilate than stressed vowels. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, stress |
| 1263 | IF an otherwise harmonizing unstressed vowel becomes stressed due to intonational factors, THEN it can no longer harmonize. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | assimilation, vowel harmony, stress, intonation |
| 1264 | The less the phonetic distance between opposing members of potential vowel grades, the more prone they will be to harmonize. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, vowel grade |
| 1265 | IF there is assimilation of vowels with high tone, THEN there will be assimilation of vowels with low tone. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, tone |