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 22 of 23
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1885 | When there are different tense categories and there is a split between 1st versus 2nd/3rd person in one of these categories, IF such a split occurs in tenses other than future, THEN it will also occur in the future. | inflection, syntax | implication | person, 1, 2, 3, split, tense, future, present, past |
| 1886 | IF there is a split between 1st versus 2nd/3rd person in the past, THEN there is such a split this split in the future too. | inflection, syntax | implication | person, 1, 2, 3, split, tense, future, past |
| 1887 | IF there is a split between 1st versus 2nd/3rd person marking in modal categories, THEN it is more likely to occur in: (a) optative than in indicative; (b) irrealis than realis; (c) volitional than involitional modality . |
inflection, syntax | implication | person, 1, 2, 3, split, mood, optative, indicative, irrealis, relais, volitional, involitional |
| 1888 | IF there is a split between 1st and 2nd person versus 3rd person marking, THEN it is more likely with a verb marked for direct or sensory evidence than verbs marked for indirect evidence, e.g. the widespread hearsay category. | inflection, syntax | implication | person, 1, 2, 3, split, evidentiality |
| 1889 | IF there is a split between 1st and 2nd person versus 3rd person marking, THEN this split is more likely with the verbal category assertive than with the category non-assertive. | inflection, syntax | implication | person, 1, 2, 3, split, assertive |
| 1890 | IF Object of Comparison can be clefted, THEN Genitive NP can be clefted as well. IF Genitive NP can be clefted, THEN Oblique NP can be clefted as well. IF Oblique NP can be clefted, THEN Indirect Object can be clefted as well. IF Indirect Object can be clefted, THEN Direct Object can be clefted as well. IF Direct Object can be clefted, THEN Subject can be clefted as well. |
syntax | implicational hierarchy | cleft, subject, direct object, indirect, oblique, attributive, comparison |
| 1891 | The Cleftability Hierarchy: Subject > Direct Object > Indirect Object > Oblique NP > Genitive NP > Object of Comparison. Syntactic positions on the top of the cleftability hierarchy have more access to the deletion strategy and/or less access to the pronoun retention strategy. |
syntax | implicational hierarchy | cleft, pronoun deletion, retention |
| 1892 | The Cleftability Hierarchy: Subject > Direct Object > Indirect Object > Oblique NP > Genitive NP > Object of Comparison. Syntactic positions on the top of the hierarchy can be clefted in a larger variety of sentences, or in more complex constructions than those on the bottom of the hierarchy. |
syntax | implicational hierarchy | cleft, complexity |
| 1900 | When function words are borrowed (especially adpositions and conjunctions), their ordering relative to their co-constituents will be the same as in the donor language. |
syntax | unconditional | language contact, borrowing, order, adposition, conjunction |
| 1902 | IF respect or social distance is distinguished for speaker (1st person) or other (3rd person) pronouns, THEN it is also distinguished for addressee (2nd person) pronouns. | inflection, syntax, discourse | implication | speaker, addressee, social distance, respect, honorific |
| 1903 | Processess of variation of the type of pronoun used in reference for showing degrees of respect or social distance are more common in address than in reference to the speaker or to someone other than the speaker or addressee. | inflection, syntax, discourse | implication | pronoun, personal pronoun, speaker, addressee, non-locutor, social distance, respect, personal pronoun, honorific |
| 1904 | IF respect or social distance is distinguished for plural pronouns, THEN it is also distinguished for singular pronouns. |
inflection, syntax, discourse | implication | pronoun, personal pronoun, social distance, respect, honorific, number, singular, plural |
| 1905 | A pronominal form used for showing greater respect or social distance is never eliminated from the system of reference in favour of one for showing less respect or social distance. | inflection, syntax, discourse | unconditional | pronoun, personal pronoun, social distance, respect, honorific |
| 1907 | IF a language is pivotless, THEN there will be isolating morphology and free word order. | inflection, syntax | implication | semantic role, information flow, deixis, isolating, free word order, NP encoding |
| 1908 | IF a language is of the pure or the mixed separatist type of relational clause structuring, THEN there will be agglutinative morphology and free word order. | inflection, syntax | implication | semantic role, information flow, deixis, agglutination, free word order |
| 1909 | IF a language is of the cumulative mixed type, THEN there will be fusional morphology or rigid word order. | inflection, syntax | implication | semantic role, information flow, deixis, fusional, rigid word order, NP encoding |
| 1910 | IF there are syntactic relations, THEN there are diathesis changes (voices). IF there are no syntactic relations, THEN there are no voices. |
inflection, syntax | implication | syntactic relation, voice, diathesis |
| 1912 | When the marker for instrumental forms part of the mode of expression of predicative possession, there is a 50% probability that comitative and instrumental are not distinguished by formal means. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | case, comitative, instrumental, predicative possession |
| 1913 | IF the grammatical expression of predicative possession requires the use of the marker of either comitative or instrumental, THEN in four out of five cases the comitative is involved. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, comitative, instrumental, predicative possession |
| 1914 | IF the marker of predicative possession is allowed to be part of the range of functions covered by the marker of instrumental, THEN at least one additional function that is not equivalent to the comitative is involved in the combination. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, comitative, instrumental, predicative possession |
| 1916 | IF there is an optative mood, THEN there is subjunctive or an imperative mood | inflection, syntax | implication | mood, optative, subjunctive, imperative |
| 1918 | IF Dative/Benefative objects can be promoted to direct object, THEN other object cases lower on the topicality hierarchy may also be "promoted" to direct object — but always with obligatory verb-coding of the semantic role of the "promoted" object. | inflection, syntax | implication | direct object, dative-shift, promotion |
| 1919 | IF basic order is VO, THEN the "promoted" direct object tends to be unmarked. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, VO, direct object, dative-shift, markedness |
| 1920 | IF basic order is OV, THEN the "promoted" direct object tends to be marked. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, OV, direct object, dative-shift, markedness |
| 1921 | IF there is polysynthesis, THEN there are no semantically significant determiners. | inflection, syntax | implication | polysynthesis, determiner |
| 1922 | IF there is polysynthesis, THEN no more than a two-way contrast in definiteness, indefiniteness, genericity, and referentiality is conveyed by the bound pronominal affixes of agreement morphology alone. | inflection, syntax, semantics | implication | polysynthesis, pronoun, agreement, definite, indefinite, generic, referential |
| 1925 | IF the verb in main clauses is inflected for subject or object agreement, THEN the verb in any sentence-like complement type will also be inflected for subject or object agreement. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb agreement, subject, object, complementation |
| 1926 | IF verbs are inflected for tense and/or aspect, THEN there is an indicative-subjunctive distinction in complementation, and vice versa. | inflection, syntax | mutual implication | tense, aspect, mood, indicative, subjunctive, complementation |
| 1927 | IF subjunctives are used in the complement clauses, THEN they can also be used in main clauses. | inflection, syntax | implication | mood, subjunctive, complementation |
| 1928 | When more than one modifier occurs before the noun, the order is always Dem < Num < Adj. | syntax | unconditional | order, noun, modifier, demonstrative, numeral, adjective |
| 1929 | If a language has two near-synonymous constructions which differ structurally in linguistic distance, they will differ semantically in (among other things) conceptual distance in a parallel fashion. | morphology, syntax, semantics | unconditional | linguistic distance, conceptual distance |
| 1930 | If a language has two modifier constructions that differ in linear order and in linguistic distance, the construction with a prenominal modifier will display the shorter linguistic distance. | morphology, syntax | unconditional | order, noun, modifier, linguistic distance |
| 1931 | If a language has two modifier constructions that differ in linear order and in linguistic distance, the construction with a prenominal modifier will display the closer conceptual distance. | morphology, syntax | unconditional | order, noun, modifier, conceptual distance |
| 1933 | IF anything other than numerals agrees with nouns in class, THEN numerals will also agree with nouns in class. | syntax, inflection | implication | agreement, noun class, numeral |
| 1951 | In deixis, person and related spatial, 1st and 3rd person never align as against 2nd. 2nd person may align with 1st or 3rd or both. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | deixis, spatial, person, 1, 2, 3 |
| 1957 | IF a negative polarity item (in particular an auxiliary) can occur in a comparative context, THEN it can also occur in a conditional context. IF a negative polarity item (in particular an auxiliary) can occur in a conditional context, THEN it can also occur in an interrogative context. IF a negative polarity item (in particular an auxiliary) can occur in an interrogative context, THEN it can also occur in a negative context. |
syntax | implicational hierarchy | negative polarity item, auxiliary, comparative, conditional, interrogative, negative |
| 1958 | IF there is a great deal of ellipsis (e.g., in replies to questions or in comments on statements, or of coreferential NPs in relative clauses), THEN there tend to be noun classes rather than classifiers. IF there is little such ellipsis (and coreferential NPs need to be repeated a great deal, making some variation desirable), THEN there tend to be noun classifiers rather than noun classes. |
inflection, syntax, discourse | implication | noun class, classifier, ellipsis |
| 1962 | IF there is isolation (i.e., no inflectional morphology), THEN word classes of noun and verb are only weakly differentiated, in the sense of (many) roots equally serving as nouns and verbs. | syntax, inflection | implication | isolation, word classes, noun, verb |
| 1972 | Every language has at least one set of forms or constructions whose primary function (or one of several major functions) is to denote existence, generally with respect to location in space or time, but in the limiting case existence apart from specific location. In other words, every language has an existential element such as a verb or particle, and the denotation of existence is never merely a marginal function of something else. | syntax, semantics | unconditional | verb, particle, existence |
| 1973 | Every language has at least one set of forms or constructions whose primary function (or one of several major functions) is to denote copulative relationships (e.g., identity, equivalence, class membership, class inclusion, attribution of property). In other words, every language has at least one copula or copula constructions, even if this is a zero of some kind which clearly contrasts with other elements commutable with it. | syntax, semantics | unconditional | verb, copula, zero |
| 1974 | In a given language the grammatical categories of the verb (e.g., person, voice, mood, tense, negation) may be carried to a greater or lesser extent by auxiliary verbs or particles which co-occur with the verb. In an extreme case these categories may be carried by a dummy morph which has no apparent lexical meaning at all. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | verb, inflection, auxiliary |
| 1975 | There is a tendency for the existential, copulative, and verb-category carrying dummy elements of a language (a) synchronically to interpenetrate in complex patterns of suppletion, semantic overlapping, and partial homonymy, and (b) diachronically to merge, split, and otherwise restructure among themselves. | inflection, syntax, semantics | unconditional | verb, existence, copula, auxiliary, suppletion, homonymy |
| 1976 | There are severe limitations on the kinds of synchronic patterns and diachronic restructurings which may occur in existential-copulative-auxiliary systems, and such patterns and changes are related to syntactic characteristics of a very general typological nature. In other words, a particular pattern of constructions of 'being' tends to reflect the general syntactic character of the language, and changes in the pattern tend to form part of general typological shifts. | inflection, syntax, semantics | implication | verb, existence, copula, auxiliary |
| 1977 | Tenseless or present-tense copulative expressions connecting nouns are more likely to vary diachronically between zero and overt morphemic marking than other copulative expressions or existential or auxiliary expressions. On the one hand, the N1 is N2 construction is the most likely place for optional omission and eventual full deletion, and, on the other hand, when the language has a zero copula, this same construction is the most likely place for the appearance of a new copulative marker. | inflection, syntax, semantics | implication | |
| 1978 | An existential or copulative element tends to be omitted more often in a construction which involves a full predication such as a noun complement, a locative complement, or a clausal subject than otherwise. | syntax | implication | verb, existence, copula, zero |
| 1979 | A grammatical element is less likely to be omitted the greater the ambiguity which would result from its omission. | syntax, semantics | implication | ellipsis, ambiguity |
| 1980 | Existential verbs of indefinite subjects tend toward clause-initial position. | syntax, semantics | unconditional | verb, existence, definiteness, subject, order |
| 1981 | When a language with a full copula begins to lose it, or when a language with a zero copula begins to develop one, the use in which the change is initiated is that of identity or equivalence with a noun complement. | syntax | implication | copula, zero |
| 1982 | When a language with zero copula inserts a pro-copula it does so between the subject and complement regardless of the normal position of verbs in the language. | syntax | unconditional | copula, zero, order, verb |
| 1983 | In a language with optional omission of a copula (under the conditions of <a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=1981"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0">), there is a tendency for the optional copula to appear between the subject and complement regardless of its position in constructions where it may not be omitted. | syntax | unconditional | copula, zero, order |