Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
62 entries · page 1 of 2
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 362 | The extent of “material“ articulation, pertaining in particular to (a) the elaboration of sound systems, (b) the complexity of syllable structures, (c) word length, (d) accentual differentiation (as opposed to not-so-articulated tonal modification), correlates with the extent of “formal“ articulation, pertaining in particular to (a) the differentiation of parts of speech, (b) the elaboration of inflectional and derivational systems, (c) analytic syntax (as opposed to not-so-articulated polysynthesis). | prosodic phonology, inflection, word formation, syntax, lexicon | mutual implication | phoneme system, syllable, word length, accent, tone, word class, polysynthesis |
| 372 | IF basic order is VO, THEN main stress in a Verb Phrase is to the right of Verb. IF basic order is OV, THEN main stress in a Verb Phrase is to the left of Verb. |
prosodic phonology, syntax | implication | stress, VP, verb, order, object |
| 385 | IF topic-comment structure is coded by intonation, THEN primary stress always falls inside the focus. | syntax, prosodic phonology | implication | topic, comment, intonation, focus |
| 391 | IF an aspirated consonant occurs preceding an unstressed vowel, THEN it also occurs preceding a secondary stressed vowel. IF an aspirated consonant occurs preceding a secondary stressed vowel, THEN it also occurs preceding a primary stressed one. |
prosodic phonology | implication | /h/, consonant, vowel, aspiration, primary, stress, secondary, unstressed |
| 494 | When a yes-no question is differentiated from the corresponding assertion by an intonational pattern, the distinctive intonational features of each of these patterns are reckoned from the end of the sentence rather than from the beginning. | syntax, prosodic phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | sentence type, interrogative, yes-no question, intonation |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 806 | IF /h/ precedes unstressed syllables, THEN it also precedes secondary stressed syllables. IF /h/ precedes secondary stressed syllables, THEN it precedes primary stressed syllables. |
prosodic phonology | implication | /h/, stress, aspiration, syllable, unstressed, primary, secondary |
| 813 | IF stress is used for semantic contrasts, THEN the language must be non-monosyllabic. | prosodic phonology | implication | stress, non-monosyllabic |
| 814 | IF there is cumulative stress, THEN there are reduced vowels. | prosodic phonology | implication | stress, cumulative, vowel, reduced |
| 815 | IF there is distributive stress, THEN there are no reduced vowels. | prosodic phonology | implication | stress, distributive, vowel, reduced |
| 817 | IF a vowel (or diphthong) is long and tone is present, THEN that syllable is stressed. | prosodic phonology | implication | stress, syllable, diphthong, long, vowel |
| 890 | IF morphology is agglutinative, THEN accent is primarily pitch. IF morphology is flexive, THEN the accent is primarily stress. |
prosodic phonology, morphology | implication | agglutination, flexion, accent, pitch, stress |
| 893 | See Graphics for Iambic vs. Troachaic phrase accent and its many correlates | prosodic phonology, morphology, syntax | mutual implication | phrase accent, word canon, timing, mora, syllable, consonantism, vocalism, tone, verse, music, order, object, verb, adverb, auxiliary, adjective, noun, attributive, postposition, clitic, enclitic proclitic, affix-order, suffix, prefix, synthesis, analysis, agglutination, polysynthesis, flexion, isolation |
| 894 | see Graphics for Iambic vs. Trochaic languages | prosodic phonology, morphology, syntax | mutual implication | stress, syllable, unit, order, object, verb, subject, adverb, adjective, noun, attributive, agglutination, flexion, timing, stress, syllable, syllable structure, intonation contour, tone |
| 895 | See Graphics for Moderate rhythmic holism | inflection, prosodic phonology | mutual implication | syllable structure, stress, vowel harmony, vowel system |
| 927 | IF stressed syllabic consonants become non-syllabic or are lost, THEN nonstressed syllabic consonants have become nonsyllabic or have been lost. | prosodic phonology | implication | consonant, syllabic, stress |
| 960 | When there is phonemic stress, IF there are n unstressed syllables flanking a stressed syllable, THEN there are n -1 unstressed syllables. | prosodic phonology | implication | stress, syllable |
| 1013 | IF accent is on the third syllable from the left edge, THEN the system is not quantity-insensitive bound. OR, BY CONTRAPOSITION: IF the system is quantity-insensitive bound, THEN accent is not on the third syllable from the left edge. |
prosodic phonology | implication | accent, stress, quantity, syllable |
| 1033 | It is these three features – stress, tone and length (with the possible addition of glottalization) – which function accentually and no others. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, tone, length, accent, glottalization |
| 1034 | Only the intense pole – loud stress, high pitch and length – ever has the accentual property. There is no language in which there is one and just one weakest stress or one lowest pitch (or shortest segment) in a phonological word. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, pitch, length, accent |
| 1035 | The climactic poles of the three accentual features tend to correlate with each other. Thus, e.g., where stress is predictable from vowel length, it is always the long degree which attracts stress. | prosodic phonology | mutual implication | stress, vowel, length, accent |
| 1037 | When stress is phonologically predictable and automatic (i.e., always on the same syllable), it may only fall on initial, final, or penultimate syllables. | prosodic phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | stress, syllable, accent |
| 1038 | Morphemically simple words must have one main stress. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, accent |
| 1039 | When stress is phonologically predictable and limited to certain syllables (i.e., does not always fall on the same syllable), the potentially stressable syllables form a sequence without gaps and are reckoned either initially forward or from the ultima backwards, with the relevant syllables being identified in terms of only three properties: (i) heaviness (vowel length and/or a complex nucleus of unlike vowels (diphthong) and/or syllable-final consonant(s), as opposed to lightness, (ii) open or peripheral vowel quality, as opposed to central vowel, or (iii) high tone, as opposed to low tone. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, syllable, accent, tone, weight, vowel quality |
| 1040 | When stress is phonologically predictable and unlimited, the relevant syllables may only be identified in terms of heaviness or open/peripheral vowel quality, with the ‘residual’ rule, applying if the word lacks a syllable of the kind required to attract stress, almost always selecting the initial syllable. | prosodic phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | stress, syllable, accent |
| 1041 | When stress is not phonologically predictable (i.e., when it is phonemic, fulfilling grammatical or lexical functions) and limited to certain syllables (i.e. does not always fall on the same syllable), the potentially stressable syllables form a sequence without gaps and are almost always reckoned from the ultima backwards, with the maximum for end reckoning apparently being four, and with penultimate syllables being preferred. | prosodic phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | stress, syllable, accent |
| 1042 | IF secondary stress is phonological, THEN it most frequently involves alternations of weak stress (unstressed?) with secondary stress (so the favorite position of secondary stress is two syllables before or after the main stress); when there are deviations, a factor of syllabic weight is probably always involved. | prosodic phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | stress, syllable, accent |
| 1044 | Concerning the relation of word prosody to phrase prosody: Word accent of the final syllable is lost unless phrase final, whereas internal word accent is retained. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | prosody, word, accent |
| 1045 | IF stress is phonologically predictable and automatic (i.e., always on the same syllable), THEN there are phonemic distinctions of vowel quantity. | prosodic phonology | implication | stress, vowel, quantity, accent |
| 1046 | When length distinctions are limited to certain positions in the word, these always include or are even confined to the stressed syllable. | prosodic phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | stress, length, word, syllable, accent |
| 1047 | When there are limitations regarding the number of long vowels in a word, they invariably involve end and/or initial reckoning. | prosodic phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | vowel, length, accent |
| 1053 | We would expect that a system which stresses the initial syllable as the elsewhere case (i.e., if words lack a long vowel, full vowel, or heavy syllable that would attract stress) would be more common than a system which places stress on the final syllable in the elsewhere case, regardless of whether stress on strong syllables is determined from the left or from the right. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, syllable |
| 1067 | Provided stress is phonologically predictable (i.e., demarcative), it will most likely fall on initial syllables, somewhat less commonly on final syllables or on penultimate syllables, rarely on second syllables, and never on others. | prosodic phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | stress, syllable |
| 1068 | Synchronic stress shifts may be from final to other (often penultimate) syllables or from second to other (often initial) syllables, but never the other ways around. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, syllable |
| 1069 | IF there is a rule placing stress on antepenultimate syllables, THEN there is stress on words consisting of only one or two syllables. | prosodic phonology | implication | stress, syllable |
| 1070 | IF syllables tend to weaken before stress, THEN they also weaken after stress. | prosodic phonology | implication | stress, syllable |
| 1071 | IF there is a contrast between light and heavy syllables, THEN there is a contrast of vowel length. | prosodic phonology | implication | syllable, vowel, vowel quantity, syllable weight |
| 1072 | IF there is a contrast between light and heavy syllables, THEN there is a contrast of consonant length. | prosodic phonology | implication | syllable, consonant, consonant quantity, syllable weight |
| 1073 | Provided stress is sensitive to syllable weight, IF stress can be passed onto neighboring syllables by syllables of any other structure THEN it can be passed on by syllables consisting of a short vowel in open syllable position. | prosodic phonology | implication | stress, syllable, vowel, vowel quantity, syllable weight |
| 1074 | Provided both stress and quantity are distinctive, either stress distinctions will be limited in terms of quantity (to either long or short vowels) or quantity distinctions will be limited in terms of stress (to stressed syllables only). | prosodic phonology | mutual limitation | stress, syllable, quantity |
| 1075 | While a tone can be restricted in occurrence by an adjacent voiced vs. voiceless consonant, no stress language assigns stress on such a basis. Stress will generally be assigned without reference to segmentals except in two potential situations: (i) there is severe articulatory conflict, and (ii) there is perceptual conflict from within the phonological system. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, tone, consonant |
| 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 |
| 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 |