Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
62 entries · page 2 of 2
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 1503 | IF there are serial verb constructions, THEN there will be VO ordering with verb serialization, one object per verb, isolating morphology, simple syllable structure, and lexical/or grammatical tone distinctions. | prosodic phonology, morphology, syntax | implication | serial verb, order, isolating, syllable, tone |
| 1675 | IF one of the two tones in contiguous syllables is low, THEN a contour tone is more likely to appear than otherwise. | prosodic phonology | implication | tone, contour tone |
| 1677 | The consonant types on the right end of the hierarchy exercise a greater tone-lowering effect, while those at the left end of the hierarchy excercise a smaller tone-lowering effect. | prosodic phonology | implicational hierarchy | tone, low, consonant |
| 1704 | The Syllabic Tone Law (conjectured): IF there are non-level tones on syllables of less than two voiced moric speech sounds, THEN there will also be non-level tones on syllables of two or more voiced moric speech sounds. |
prosodic phonology | implication | tone, level, accent, pitch accent, mora, short vowel |
| 1710 | The Weight Law (aka Stressed Syllables Law or Prokosch's Law): In stress accent languages an accented syllable is the more preferred, the closer its syllable weight is to two moras, and an unaccented syllable is the more preferred the closer its weight is to one mora. (The optimal stressed syllable is bimoric, the optimal unstressed syllable is unimoric.) |
prosodic phonology | implication | stress accent, syllable, mora |
| 1715 | The Attractiveness of Rhymes: A rhyme is the more attractive: (a) the more heavily its syllable is accented relative to the following syllable, (b) the shorter it is, and (c) the less the Consonantal Strength of its elements is, especially towards its offset. |
prosodic phonology | implication | syllable, rhyme, consonant, strength, sonority, complexity, accent |
| 1796 | IF nasalization is phonologized first on proparoxytonic vowels before nasals, THEN nasalization will have already been phonologized on paroxytonic vowels before nasals. IF nasalization is phonologized first on paroxytonic vowels before nasals, THEN nasalization will have already been phonologized on oxytonic vowels before nasals. |
prosodic phonology | implicational hierarchy | nasalization, nasal, oxytone, vowel |
| 1797 | IF nasals are deleted word-finally preceding vowels, THEN they are deleted word-finally before consonants. IF nasals are deleted word-finally preceding consonants, THEN they are deleted word-medially before consonants. |
prosodic phonology | implicational hierarchy | deletion, nasal, consonant, vowel |
| 1967 | Within words (or also relevant other domains, such as stems), co-occurring vowels tend to be similar with respect to place and manner of articulation and laryngeal specification, while co-occurring consonants (adjacent as well as distant) tend to be dissimilar. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | phonotactics, vowel, consonant, word, assimilation, dissimilation |
| 2012 | When vowel length is contrastive, pitch is the most important cue, intensity the second-most important cue, and duration the least important cue for word stress.When vowel length is not contrastive, duration is the most important cue for word stress.When there is contrastive tone, duration is the most important cue for word stress and pitch the least important. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, pitch, vowel length, intensity, duration, tone |
| 2013 | If there is contrastive pitch accent, then there is a vocalic length contrast.If there is a vocalic length contrast, then there cannot also be contrastive dynamic (=stress) accent.If there is contrastive dynamic (=stress) accent, then there cannot also be contrastive vowel length.[i.e., and vice versa] | prosodic phonology | implication | pitch, stress, vowel length |