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 6 of 23
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 328 | IF transitive verbs agree with their subjects in some grammatical feature, THEN intransitive verbs will agree with their subjects in each of these features. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb agreement, subject, transitivity |
| 329 | IF a verb agrees with the subject by a prefix, THEN verbs have affixes or clitics which agree with the direct object. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb agreement, subject, direct object, affix-order, prefix, clitic |
| 330 | IF transitive verbs agree with subjects in person by means of suffixes, THEN at least some intransitive verbs also agree with their subjects by suffixes. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb agreement, subject, person, transitivity, affix-order, suffix |
| 331 | IF intransitive verbs agree with subjects in person by means of prefixes, THEN transitive verbs also agree with their subjects by prefixes. |
inflection, syntax | implication | verb agreement, subject, person, transitive verb, intransitive verb, affix-order, prefix |
| 332 | IF in verb agreement with subjects agreement affixes can only be prefixes, THEN in verb agreement with objects agreement affixes are also prefixes in all or at least some verb forms. |
inflection, syntax | implication | verb agreement, subject, object, affix-order, prefix |
| 333 | IF in verb agreement with objects agreement affixes can only be suffixes, THEN in verb agreement with subjects agreement affixes are also suffixes in all or at least some verb forms. |
inflection, syntax | implication | verb agreement, subject, object, affix-order, suffix |
| 334 | IF subject or object agreement or cross-reference markers on verb are postverbal, but under certain conditions can appear in preverbal positions, THEN one of these licensing conditions is the presence of preverbal negation. |
inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | verb agreement, cross-reference, subject, object, affix-order, clitic, negation |
| 335 | IF object agreement is by means of a confix, THEN subject agreement can also be by confix in the same or other verb forms. |
inflection, syntax | implication | verb agreement, object, subject, affix-order, confix |
| 336 | IF subject agreement with a transitive verb is by means of a confix, THEN the prefixal and/or suffixal part of that confix will be used for subject agreement on intransitive verbs. |
inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | verb agreement, subject, transitivity, affix-order, confix |
| 337 | IF subject agreement with an intransitive verb is by means of a confix, THEN the prefixal and/or suffixal part of that confix will be used for subject agreement on transitive verbs. |
inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | verb agreement, subject, transitivity, affix-order, confix |
| 338 | Whenever the verb agrees with subject and object, IF there are confix forms such as s-V-s-o, THEN there is also non-confixal subject agreement in the order s-V-o. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb agreement, subject, direct object, person, affix-order, prefix, suffix, confix |
| 339 | Whenever the verb agrees with subject and object, IF there are confix forms such as o-V-s-o, THEN there is also non-confixal object agreement in the order o-V-s. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb agreement, subject, object, person, affix-order, confix, prefix, suffix |
| 340 | IF number is expressed in a prefixal part of a confix in verb agreement, THEN it is also expressed in its suffixal part. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb agreement, number, confix, prefix, suffix |
| 341 | IF confixes are used in verbal inflection, THEN the function of at least some of them is to agree with or cross-reference plural or dual subjects and/or objects. |
inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | verb agreement, number, plural, dual, confix |
| 342 | IF the dominant position of the subject with respect to the verb depends on their morphological properties, THEN the dominant order will be Verb-Object. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb, subject, object, order |
| 343 | IF the dominant position of the object with respect to the verb depends on morphological properties of the object, THEN the dominant order is SV. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb, subject, object, order |
| 344 | IF the subject expressed by an independent personal pronoun usually follows the verb, THEN the nominal subject also follows the verb. | syntax | implication | order, verb, subject, noun, pronoun, personal pronoun |
| 345 | IF the order VS is dominant with transitive verbs, THEN it will be dominant with intransitive verbs as well. | syntax | implication | order, transitivity, subject |
| 346 | IF a subject usually follows the nominal predicate, THEN it also follows the verbal predicate. | syntax | implication | order, subject, nominal predicate, verbal predicate |
| 347 | IF the order OV is not recessive, THEN the order SV is not recessive as well. | syntax | implication | order, verb, subject, object |
| 348 | IF VS order is not recessive, THEN VO order is not recessive either. | syntax | implication | order, verb, subject, object |
| 349 | IF SOV is a dominant order, THEN OVS is one of the alternative orders. | syntax | implication | order, SOV, OVS |
| 350 | IF VSO is one of the alternative orders, THEN VOS is also one of the alternative orders. | syntax | implication | order, VSO, VOS |
| 351 | In a dominant order the object and the verb are juxtaposed, uninterrupted by the subject (i.e., SVO, SOV, VOS, OVS, but not VSO, OSV). | syntax | unconditional | order, verb, object, subject |
| 352 | In a dominant order the subject and the object are juxtaposed, uninterrupted by the verb (i.e., SOV, VOS, VSO, OSV, but not SVO, OVS). | syntax | unconditional | order, verb, object, subject |
| 353 | In a dominant order no more than one of these three principles – here numbered <a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=351"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0">, <a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=352"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0">, <a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=490"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0"> – can be violated. | syntax | unconditional | order |
| 354 | IF the dominant order is OS, THEN the order VS is also dominant. | syntax | implication | order, subject, object |
| 355 | Whenever there is verb agreement with subject and object, IF the orderings of agreement markers on verbs include s-V-o but not o-V-s, THEN basic word order is verb-initial (VSO or VOS). | inflection, syntax | implication | order, verb-initial, VSO, VOS, verb agreement, subject, object, affix-order |
| 356 | Whenever there is verb agreement with subject and object, IF the orderings of agreement markers on verbs include o-V-s but not s-V-o, THEN basic word order is SOV. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, SOV, verb agreement, subject, object, affix-order |
| 357 | Whenever there is verb agreement with subject and object, IF the orderings of agreement markers on verbs is always V-s, THEN basic word order is SV. |
inflection, syntax | implication | verb agreement, subject, affix-order, order, SV |
| 358 | Whenever there is verb agreement with subject and object and basic word order is VS, IF subject agreement markers are always postverbal, THEN object agreement markers are always postverbal too. |
inflection, syntax | implication | order, VS, verb agreement, subject, verb, object, affix-order |
| 359 | IF an incorporated nominal direct object precedes the verb stem, THEN the autonomous subject precedes the predicate. | morphology, syntax | implication | order, incorporation, verb, subject, direct object |
| 360 | IF an incorporated direct object follows the verb stem, THEN the autonomous subject follows the predicate. | morphology, syntax | implication | incorporation, verb, order, direct object, subject |
| 361 | IF word order is free, THEN the words tend to be longer than one syllable. IF basic word order is SVO, THEN the words tend to be monosyllabic. |
phonology, syntax | implication | word length, syllable, order, SVO |
| 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 |
| 366 | Whenever there is verb agreement with subject and object, IF object agreement markers can be preverbal, THEN basic word order is SV. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb agreement, order, subject, object, affix-order |
| 370 | IF morphology is agglutinative, THEN casual/fast speech shows less phonological reduction than if morphology is flexive. | phonology, morphology, syntax | implication | agglutination, flexion, fast speech, agreement |
| 371 | IF there is vowel harmony and perhaps other progressive phonological modifications, THEN basic word order is OV, but not vice versa; IF there is umlaut and perhaps other regressive/anticipatory phonological modifications, THEN basic word order is VO, but not vice versa. |
phonology, syntax | implication | vowel harmony, assimilation, order, object, verb, umlaut |
| 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 |
| 374 | IF there are high syllable-per-sentence and high syllable-per-word ratios & simple syllables & agglutinative morphology, THEN basic word order will be (S)OV. IF there are low syllable-per-sentence and low syllable-per-word ratios & complex syllables & flexive [or no] morphology, THEN basic word order will be (S)V(S)O. |
phonology, morphology, syntax | implication | agglutination, flexion, syllable, order, complexity |
| 376 | IF an expression is the topic of a sentence, THEN it is typically definite or generic. | syntax, pragmatics | implication | topic, definiteness, generic |
| 377 | IF there are specialized topic markers, THEN these will always be postpositional and basic word order will almost always be SOV. | inflection, syntax | implication | topic, order, SOV |
| 378 | IF there are specialized topic markers, THEN there will be high topic prominence (in the sense of Li & Thompson 1976). | syntax, pragmatics | implication | topic |
| 379 | Every language has syntactic topic constructions in which an expression which refers to the topic of the sentence is adjoined to the left of a full sentence comment. | syntax, pragmatics | unconditional | topic, order, comment, theme, new information |
| 380 | Every language has cleft constructions, either wh-clefts or it-clefts or both. | syntax, pragmatics | unconditional | topic, cleft, wh-cleft, it-cleft |
| 381 | Every language has “double-subject”* constructions. | syntax, pragmatics | unconditional | topic, comment |
| 382 | All languages have constructions whose function is to place topic, both old and new, before comment. | syntax, pragmatics | unconditional | topic, comment, order, focus |
| 383 | The higher the topic-prominence, the less restricted the distribution of zero anaphora. | syntax, pragmatics | implication | topic, anaphora, zero |
| 384 | The higher the topic-prominence, the fewer subject-creating constructions. | syntax, pragmatics | implication | topic, subject |
| 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 |