Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
1,130 entries · page 21 of 23
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1694 | IF there is posterior consecutive deranking and the basic order is VSO, THEN there is absolute deranking. | syntax | implication | deranking, order, VSO |
| 1695 | IF there is absolute consecutive deranking, THEN basic order is either SOV or VSO. | syntax | implication | deranking, order, SOV, VOS |
| 1696 | IF there is absolute anterior consecutive deranking, THEN basic order is SOV. | syntax | implication | deranking, order, SOV |
| 1698 | IF there is only conditional deranking of consecutive chains, THEN there is posterior deranking and basic order is SVO . | syntax | implication | deranking, order, SVO |
| 1721 | IF possessive determiners co-occur with definite articles, THEN nominal possessives do so, too. | syntax | implication | article, definiteness, possession |
| 1722 | IF possessive determiners co-occur with demonstratives, THEN nominal possessives co-occur with definite articles. | syntax | implication | article, definiteness, possession, demonstrative |
| 1723 | IF indefinite articles co-occur with possessives, THEN definite articles do so, too. | syntax | implication | article, definiteness, possession |
| 1724 | If the definite article co-occurs with the noun accompanied by a demonstrative, it also co-occurs with nouns accompanied by at least some possessives. | syntax | implication | definite article, demonstrative, possessive |
| 1725 | IF the article co-occurs with the noun that is accompanied by a pronominal possessor, THEN the article co-occurs with the noun if the possessor is nominal. | syntax | implication | article, possessor |
| 1726 | IF the article co-occurs with the noun that is accompanied by an adjacent possessor, THEN the article co-occurs with the noun if the possessor is non-adjacent. | syntax | implication | article, possessor |
| 1727 | IF the article co-occurs with the noun that is accompanied by adnominal possessives that are not marked for genitive, THEN the article co-occurs with adnominal possessives that are marked for genitive. | syntax | implication | article, possessor, attributive, genitive case |
| 1728 | IF the article co-occurs with the noun when the demonstrative or the possessive is preposed, THEN the article co-occurs with the noun when the demonstrative or the possessive is postposed. | syntax | implication | article, possessive, demonstrative, order |
| 1729 | When a demonstrative is used nominally (forming an NP of its own, rather than being a determiner), it does not occur with a non-bound definite article. |
syntax | implication | definite article, demonstrative, pronoun |
| 1730 | IF the definite article can be the sole marker of definiteness in a noun phrase, THEN the definite article can be the sole marker of nominality. | syntax | implication | definite article, definiteness, noun |
| 1731 | Indigenous non-affixal articles are polyfunctional and at least one of their additional uses is pronominal. | syntax | unconditional | article, pronoun |
| 1732 | In most languages the demonstrative pronoun and demonstrative adjective are identical. | syntax | mutual implication | demonstrative |
| 1733 | IF any non-bound noun phrase constituent can occur nominally, THEN so can all other more peripherally ordered ones. | syntax | implication | NP, boundedness, order, noun |
| 1734 | The phonological body of the definite article is never more substantial in adnominal use than in pronominal use. | inflection, syntax | implication | definite article, pronoun |
| 1735 | The phonological body of any noun phrase constituent is never more substantial in adnominal use than in pronominal use. | inflection, syntax | implication | NP, pronoun |
| 1736 | IF a noun phrase constituent has special adnominal and nominal forms for any of its more marked members, THEN it tends to have such forms for some or all of its less marked members. | inflection, syntax | implication | NP, noun, pronoun, markedness |
| 1737 | IF the definite article carries any gender, number, and/or case inflection in adnominal use, THEN it carries at least the same inflection in pronominal use. | inflection, syntax | implication | definite article, gender, number, case, pronoun, determiner |
| 1738 | IF a noun phrase constituent carries any gender, number, and/or case inflection in adnominal use, THEN it carries at least the same inflection in pronominal use. | inflection, syntax | implication | NP, gender, number, case, pronoun, determiner |
| 1739 | The definite article may govern but is never governed by a noun-phrase-internal constituent. | syntax | unconditional | definite article, NP, government |
| 1740 | IF an article is the sole carrier of gender and/or number and/or case, THEN it will co-occur with definite and generic nouns. | inflection, syntax | implication | article, case, number, gender, noun, definiteness, generic |
| 1741 | IF a less peripherally ordered noun phrase constituent marks gender, number, and/or case redundantly, THEN all more peripherally ordered constituents can mark these categories redundantly. | inflection, syntax | implication | NP, order, case, number, gender, agreement |
| 1742 | IF the adnominal demonstrative or possessive occurs with a noun that is accompanied by the definite article at one point in time but not at another point in time, THEN the former time precedes the latter. | syntax | implication | demonstrative, possessive |
| 1743 | On the NP analysis pronouns are arguably anomalous in lacking an overt noun head – unless pronouns are taken to be a kind of noun, a problematic view given that they cannot in general be modified by Dets (*this him, *the me). | syntax | unconditional | personal pronoun, definite article |
| 1744 | Noun phrases with personal pronouns as their heads tend not to take definite articles. | syntax | unconditional | pronoun, personal pronoun, article, definiteness |
| 1745 | There are no endoclitics, i.e., clitics inside words do not exist. | phonology, syntax | unconditional | clitics, endoclitics |
| 1748 | IF there are no overt articles, THEN non-specific direct objects fail to be accusative-marked. IF there are no overt articles, THEN non-specific direct objects fail to be marked in the same way as specific direct objects. |
inflection, syntax | implication | article, direct object, case, accusative, specificity |
| 1750 | When in some contexts the distinction between cardinal and ordinal numerals is neutralized, cardinals may replace ordinals but never vice versa. | syntax | unconditional | numeral, cardinal, ordinal |
| 1757 | When cardinal and ordinal numerals are ordered differently relative to nouns, cardinals always precede nouns and ordinals always follow them. | syntax | unconditional | numeral, ordinal, cardinal, noun, order |
| 1758 | IF only one (cardinal or ordinal) numeral differs from all others in its ordering relative to the noun, THEN it will be that for the number 1.IF another numeral joins 1 in failing to conform to general ordering rules, THEN it will be that for the number 2. | syntax | unconditional | numeral, ordinal, cardinal, noun, order |
| 1759 | IF person and/or number is marked on non-finite forms, THEN person and/or number is also marked on finite forms. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb, finite, non-finite, agreement, person, number |
| 1760 | IF the subject of a non-finite form is nominative, THEN the subject of (at least some) finite forms will also be nominative. | inflection, syntax | implication | finite, non-finite, subject, nominative case |
| 1762 | IF basic word order is SOV, THEN there are no prepositions owing to borrowing. | lexicon, syntax | implication | borrowing, order, SOV, preposition |
| 1788 | The Length Strategy: The longer a sentence is, the more likely it is to be classified as belonging to a more formal register. |
syntax, pragmatics | implication | complexity, length, formality, register |
| 1789 | The Particle Strategy: The more short, particle-like words a sentence contains, the more likely it is to be classified as belonging to a more informal register. |
syntax, pragmatics | implication | particle, length, formality, register |
| 1790 | The shorter a linguistic expression is, the more likely it is will be associated with familiarity and high frequency of occurrence. The longer a linguistic expression is, the more likely it is will be associated with unfamiliarity and low frequency of occurrence. |
morphology, syntax, semantics | implication | iconicity, complexity, length, formality, register, frequency |
| 1831 | IF basic word order is SOV, THEN modifiers tend to come before nouns, most likely in nominalizations and with continuously decreasing likelihood with possessives, with relative clauses, and with attributive adjectives. | syntax | implication | order, SOV, verb, subject, object, nominalization, noun, modifier, possessive, adjective, relative clause |
| 1832 | IF a relative clause or adjective precedes the noun, THEN possessives also precede the noun. | syntax | implication | order, noun, modifier, possessive, adjective, relative clause |
| 1870 | Baby talk has shorter sentences, fewer subordinate clauses, fewer grammatical relations, more repetitions than normal adult-to-adult speech, often omits inflections and function words, and the copula. | inflection, syntax, discourse | unconditional | baby talk, complexity, subordination, copula |
| 1871 | Every speech community seems to have a small lexicon of words used primarily with young children. The words of this special lexicon (i) fall into certain semantic areas (namely body parts, body functions, kin terms, food, animals, infant games), (ii) they include greater use of hypocoristic affixes, (iii) they are used more freely in different word class functions than the normal adult lexicon (esp. as parts of compound verbs with general purpose auxiliaries), and (iv) they tend to be phonologically simplified (simple canonical forms, esp. CVCV; substitution of marked sounds by less marked ones; special sounds; consonant and vowel harmony; reduplication). | phonology, syntax | unconditional | baby talk, hypocoristic, word class, complexity, markedness, consonant harmony, vowel harmony, reduplication |
| 1878 | In the coding of subordination vis-a-vis that of non-subordinate clauses: (a) If there is elimination of Aspect, then there is elimination of Tense and Mood. (b) If there is elimination of agreement, then there is elimination of Tense, Aspect, or Mood. (c) If there is case/adposition marking, then there is elimination of Tense, Aspect, or Mood. (d) If there is possessor/oblique coding, the there is elimination of Tense, Aspect, Mood or Agreement. |
syntax, inflection | implication | clause combining, subordination, tense, aspect, mood, agreement, case, adposition, possessor, oblique |
| 1879 | In the coding of subordination vis-a-vis that of non-subordinate clauses: (a) Case/adposition & agreement eliminated >> case/adposition marking & agreement maintained. (b) Arguments omitted & tense/aspect/mood eliminated >> arguments omitted & tense/aspect/mood maintained. (c) Arguments maintained & tense/aspect/mood eliminated >> arguments omitted & agreement maintained. (d) Arguments maintained & agreement maintained >> arguments omitted & agreement maintained. (where ‘>>’ means ‘is crosslinguistically more frequent than’) |
syntax, inflection | unconditional | clause combining, subordination, tense, aspect, mood, agreement, case, adposition |
| 1880 | Frequency hierarchy for the coding of subordination vis-a-vis that of non-subordinate clauses: elimination of tense/aspect/mood >> elimination of agreement distinctions, omission of verb arguments >> case/adposition marking on the verb >> coding of verb arguments as possessor or obliques. |
inflection, syntax | implicational hierarchy | clause combining, subordination, tense, aspect, mood, agreement, case, adposition, possessor, oblique |
| 1881 | In the coding of subordination vis-a-vis that of non-subordinate clauses, IF there is loss of subject-verb agreement and non-direct (but possessive/oblique) case marking of the subordinate subject, THEN there is loss of tense/aspect/mood, but not vice versa |
syntax, inflection | implication | clause combining, subordination, tense, aspect, mood, agreement, case, adposition, possessor, oblique |
| 1882 | Polarity [in gender/number systems] is never complete (i.e., polarity is never the sole configuration of gender/number markers under all circumstances in a given language). | inflection, syntax | unconditional | gender, number, polarity |
| 1883 | IF a verbal form inflects for tense-aspect-modality (TAM) like a predicated verb, THEN it will take subject and object dependents like a predicated verb. IF a verbal form takes a subject dependent like a predicated verb, THEN it will take an object dependent like a predicated verb. |
inflection, syntax | implication | deverbalization hierarchy, predicated verb, tense, aspect, mood, sunject, object |
| 1884 | IF there is an expletive subject, THEN there is some definite argument elsewhere in the clause. | syntax | implication | clause, expletive subject, definite argument |