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 9 of 23
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 563 | IF the dual extends to non-pronominal agreement forms, THEN it also extends to personal pronouns and nouns. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, number, dual, noun, personal pronoun |
| 570 | When there are high and low social varieties of a language and only one of them has an article, it will usually be the low variety. | syntax | unconditional | article |
| 572 | (In Indo-European) IF there is no nominal case marking, THEN there will be an article. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, article |
| 573 | IF the definite article is grammaticalized in subject NPs, THEN it is also grammaticalized in direct object NPs. IF the definite article is grammaticalized in direct object NPs, THEN it is also grammaticalized in prepositionally marked NPs. |
inflection, syntax | implicational hierarchy | article, grammaticalization, PP, direct object NP, subject NP |
| 574 | Hierarchy of syntactic bondedness (stronger > weaker): article+noun > deictic+noun < interrogative+noun < quantifier/indefinite+noun < adjective+noun > > participle+noun > relative clause+noun. As soon as an adjunct category has an obligatory overt marker of its subordination to the head noun (such as ligature morphemes), all weaker bound categories of adjuncts also require an overt marker. But bondedness hierarchy is claimed to be valid for other morphosyntactic differences between various kinds of adjuncts as well. |
syntax | implicational hierarchy | article, noun, interrogative, deictic, quantifier, indefinite, adjective, participle, relative clause, boundeness, hierarchy, ligative |
| 575 | IF there is obligatory marking of (in)definiteness, THEN there will be obligatory marking of nominal plurality (but not vice versa). | inflection, syntax | implication | definiteness, number, plural, noun |
| 576 | IF there is obligatory marking of (in)definiteness, THEN there will be no obligatory marking of numeral classification. | inflection, syntax | implication | definiteness, numeral classifier |
| 577 | IF there is obligatory marking of (in)definiteness, THEN there will be no stacked adnominal numeral constructions. | inflection, syntax | implication | definiteness, numeral |
| 579 | IF personal pronouns can have semantic rather than syntactic agreement in gender or number with a particular noun, THEN relative pronouns, predicative, and attributive constituents can also have semantic agreement with that noun. IF relative pronouns can have semantic agreement in gender or number with a particular noun, THEN predicative, and attributive constituents can also have semantic agreement with that noun. IF predicative constituents can have semantic agreement in gender or number with a particular noun, THEN attributive constituents can also have semantic agreement with that noun. |
inflection, syntax, semantics | implicational hierarchy | agreement, gender, number, attributive, predicate, relative pronoun, personal pronoun |
| 581 | IF stacked targets (such as attributive adjective and a determiner) may differ in agreeing on a referential-semantic or a syntactic basis, THEN the target further from the controller is likelier than the one closer to it to agree on a semantic basis. | inflection, syntax, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | agreement, attribution, adjective, determiner |
| 582 | IF there is a distinction between count and mass nouns, THEN NPs are configurational. IF NPs are configurational, THEN there is a distinction between count and mass nouns. |
morphology, syntax, semantics | mutual implication | count noun, mass noun, configurational NP |
| 591 | Whenever in a language there are two classes of noun phrases such that members of one class are case-marked ergatively and members of the other class are case-marked accusatively, and there is a semantic difference between the classes related either to activeness of noun phrase referents, or their quantitative properties, or their pragmatic prominence, members of the class that ranks higher on these properties will be marked accusatively and members of the lower-ranking class, ergatively. | inflection, syntax, semantics | implicational hierarchy | case, accusative, ergative, NP, hierarchy, split |
| 592 | All languages include utterance pairs where inclusion relations between semantic representations are paralleled by corresponding inclusion relations in morpheme structure; but in no language are all meaning inclusion relations so paralleled (e. g. no language has a fully iconic numeral system where all numerals are expressed by the repetition of the morpheme ‘one’). | morphology, syntax, semantics | unconditional | morpheme, complexity, iconicity, numeral |
| 593 | All languages include some utterances where the grouping of some semantic features in syntactic surface structure is identical to their grouping in semantic representations; but in no language are such groupings always congruent on the two levels. | syntax, semantics | unconditional | order |
| 594 | The repetition of syntactic constituents is used in all languages to express continuity of action (e.g. 'he walked and walked') and/or emphasis (e. g. 'very, very bright'). | morphology, syntax, semantics | unconditional | repetition, emphasis, iterative |
| 595 | There are some instances of adjacency relations among syntactic constituents which symbolize semantic relatedness between the corresponding meanings; but in all languages there are some utterances with semantically related but non-adjacent constituents. Cf. Behaghel's First Law. | syntax, semantics | unconditional | order |
| 597 | IF the temporal order of syntactic constituents that describe events symbolizes anything about the actual order in which these events are said to take place, THEN the symbolism is iconic in that the earlier-mentioned event is to be taken as the one that takes place earlier. | syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | order, iconicity |
| 598 | The reversal of syntactic constituent order is never systematically iconic, i. e. signaling the reversal of meaning. | syntax | unconditional | order, iconicity |
| 599 | IF a possessive adjective is separated from the head noun by any constituent, THEN this intervening element will be the determiner. | syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | possessive adjective, noun, determiner, order |
| 600 | When evaluative and affective adjectives occur in the same construction, the evaluative adjective always precedes the affective adjective. | syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | adjective, order |
| 601 | IF basic order is VO, THEN the chances are equal that there is person-number inflection or that there isn't. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, VO, verb, inflection, person, number |
| 603 | Whenever there is more than one alignment type of verb agreement, one being ergative and the other non-ergative: ergative verb agreement occurs in perfective sentences, and non-ergative verb agreement occurs in imperfective sentences. |
inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | agreement, alignment, ergative, aspect, perfective |
| 604 | IF there is agreement between the verb and some of its noun phrase complements with respect to “affectedness” or quality, THEN the noun phrase complements participating in this kind of agreement will be objects and intransitive subjects. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | agreement, verb, NP, semantics, affectedness, object, intransitive subject |
| 605 | IF alignment is accusative for some/many purposes, THEN verb agreement in person or number or gender is not limited to ergative alignment. | inflection, syntax | implication | alignment, accusative, ergative, verb agreement, person, number, gender |
| 606 | IF definite objects are differently ordered from indefinite ones, THEN also definite intransitive subjects will be differently ordered from indefinite ones. IF definite intransitive subjects are differently ordered from indefinite ones, THEN also definite objects will be differently ordered from indefinite ones. |
syntax | implication | definiteness, NP, order, object, transitive subject, intransitive subject |
| 607 | IF the possessive adjective follows the noun, THEN the relative clause follows the noun. OR, BY CONTRAPOSITION: IF the relative clause precedes the noun, THEN the possessive adjective precedes the noun. |
syntax | implication | possessive, noun, adjective, order |
| 609 | If there are two verb-lexicalization rules in a language such that the two meaning characterization contrast only in the quantity or quality of some noun phrase referent involved in the event, this noun phrase constituent will be either an object or an intransitive subject, but not a transitive subject. | syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | lexicalization, intransitive subject, transitive subject, object |
| 610 | IF there is switch-reference marking with 1st and/or 2nd Person, THEN also with 3rd person, but not vice versa. | inflection, syntax | implication | switch-reference, 1 person, 2 person, 3 person |
| 612 | Reference clauses for Switch-Reference marking are never subordinate to Marking clauses. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | switch-reference |
| 613 | IF the switch-reference marker is a suffix, THEN the marking clause precedes the Reference clause; IF the switch-reference marker is a verbal prefix, THEN the marking clause follows the reference clause. |
inflection, syntax | implication | switch-reference, suffix, prefix, order |
| 614 | IF there is switch-reference marking between non-adjacent clauses, THEN switch-reference between adjacent clauses will be marked as well. |
inflection, syntax | implication | switch-reference, order, adjacency |
| 615 | IF there is Switch-Reference marking, THEN word order is verb-final . |
inflection, syntax | implication | switch-reference, order, verb-final |
| 618 | IF an object of comparison can be relativized, THEN an attributive genitive can be as well. IF an attributive genitive can be relativized, THEN a major oblique case NP can be as well. IF a major oblique case NP can be relativized, THEN an indirect object can be as well. IF an indirect object can be relativized, THEN a direct object can be as well. IF an direct object can be relativized, THEN a subject can be as well. |
syntax | implicational hierarchy | accessibility hierarchy, relative clause, attributive, indirect object, direct object, subject, object of comparison |
| 619 | If an NPrel is a pronoun for subjects, THEN an NPrel can be a pronoun for non-direct objects, direct objects, and possessors as well. If NPrel is a pronoun for direct objects, THEN NPrel can be a pronoun for non-direct objects, and possessors as well. If NPrel is a pronoun for non-direct objects, THEN NPrel can be a pronoun for possessors as well. |
syntax | implicational hierarchy | accessibility hierarchy, pronoun, relative clause, attributive, non-direct object, direct object, subject |
| 620 | IF there are two ways of forming relative clauses, THEN the more explicit type will be used lower down the hierarchy and the less explicit type higher up the hierarchy. | syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | accessibility hierarchy, relative clause |
| 621 | IF a subordinate direct object can be relativized, THEN a main clause direct object can be as well. | syntax | implication | accessibility hierarchy, relative clause, subordinate, main, direct object |
| 622 | IF an attributive can be relativized by gapping, THEN non-direct objects, direct objects, and subjects can be as well. IF a non-direct object can be relativized by gapping, THEN direct objects and subjects can be as well. IF a direct object can be relativized by gapping, THEN subjects can be as well. |
syntax | implicational hierarchy | accessibility hierarchy, relative clause, gapping, attributive, non-direct object, direct object, subject<br> |
| 624 | Distributive-key quantifier words are at least as closely bound to their head nouns as their ordinary counterparts. | syntax, semantics | unconditional | quantifier, distributive, head noun, boundedness |
| 626 | IF there are distributive-share quantifier words, THEN NPs are non-configurational, and nouns of low and high countability preference are indistinguishable. | syntax, semantics | implication | quantifier word, distributive, non-configurational NP |
| 627 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme, THEN basic order is verb-initial or verb-final. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, verb-initial, verb-final, case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme |
| 630 | IF a distributive-share quantifier word and its ordinary counterpart are associated, in a certain construction, with different number morphology, THEN the distributive share quantifier word is associated with plural morphology, and the ordinary quantifier word with singular morphology. | inflection, syntax, lexicon | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | quantifier, distributive, number, plural, singular |
| 635 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme, THEN nominal inflection will be agglutinative. | syntax, inflection | implication | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, agglutination, noun |
| 636 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme, THEN there will be blurred word-class distinction between nouns and adjectives. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, word class, noun, adjective |
| 637 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme, THEN syntax will be non-configurational. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, non-configurational syntax |
| 638 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme, THEN there will be ergative or other non-accusative alignment. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, ergative-absolutive alignment |
| 648 | IF the gender of a 3rd person personal pronoun does not vary when used in reference to the addressee(s), in a language which has distinctions of gender in the 3rd person personal pronouns, THEN it corresponds to that of the noun or the head noun phrase which the pronoun replaced. | inflection, syntax | implication | personal pronoun, 3 person, gender, noun, addressee |
| 652 | Of (i) reflexive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and pronominalized nouns or pronominalized nominal expressions used in reference and (ii) personal pronouns of the same number, the former (i) usually indicate greater respect or social distance than the latter (ii). | syntax, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | personal pronoun, reflexive pronoun, demonstrative pronoun, number, respect, social distance |
| 654 | IF there is unlimited consonant clustering, THEN basic order is VS, and vice versa. IF there are limitations on consonant clustering, THEN basic order is SV, and vice versa. |
phonology, syntax | mutual implication | order, subject, verb, SV, VS, consonant cluster |
| 655 | IF there is polysynthesis, THEN the consonant-vowel ratio is comparatively high. | phonology, morphology, syntax | mutual implication | consonant, vowel, ratio, polysynthesis |
| 664 | IF there is converb prominence, THEN there is OV order. IF there is OV order, THEN there is converb prominence. |
syntax | mutual implication | converb, order, ov, verb, object |