Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
297 entries · page 1 of 6
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 48 | The noun phrase (NP) internal distribution of case between head noun and any agreeing constituents is determined by dominance relations defined on X-bar structures, not by linear order, contiguity of constituents, or control by the head noun. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | NP, noun, agreement, X-bar structure, order, case |
| 49 | Case and number agreement of attributive adjectives are determined independently: number agreement is controlled by head nouns; case is distributed among the relevant noun phrase (NP) constituents subject to structural conditions, especially that of c-command. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | NP, noun, case, number, attributive adjective, agreement, c-command |
| 50 | The agreement features of modifiers in NP-internal agreement may include case but not person. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | noun, modifier, case, person, agreement |
| 51 | The agreement features of governing elements in agreement with NPs governed may include person but not case. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | verb, adposition, possession, dependent, agreement, case, person |
| 80 | Relativization is never limited to NPs demoted from subjecthood by passivization. | syntax | unconditional | diathesis, passivization, relativization, subject |
| 81 | Relativization is never limited to NPs demoted from direct object status by dative shift. | syntax | unconditional | direct object, dative-shift, relativization |
| 82 | Passivization is never limited to NPs demoted from direct object status by dative shift. | syntax | unconditional | diathesis, passivization, dative-shift, direct object |
| 90 | An object agreement marker cannot be formally and semantically entirely distinct from a personal pronoun (in its object form). | inflection, syntax | unconditional | object, agreement, personal pronoun, verb |
| 106 | When class and number agreement is being lost, not all class/number-agreeing adjectives lose it at the same time. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | adjective, noun class, number, agreement |
| 115 | Cases can be neutralized for a given Number, but not Numbers for a given Case. | inflection | unconditional | number, case |
| 123 | Objects of transitive or subjects of intransitive sentences (absolutives) may be alternatively marked by an accusative-nominative or by a partitive, and this marking difference does not correlate with any difference in semantic case function, but with one or more of the following semantic properties of the verbs or nouns involved: a. the definiteness-indefiniteness of the noun phrase; b. the extent to which the object is involved in the event; c. the completedness vs. non-completedness of the event; d. whether the sentence is affirmative or negative. |
inflection, syntax, semantics | unconditional | direct object, subject, case, accusative, nominative, partitive, definiteness, involvement, completedness, affirmation, negation |
| 129 | In transitive action nominalizations, either all arguments retain their sentential dependent-marking or at least one of them genitivizes, except in the marginal MIX-type. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | nominalization, dependent-marking, case, genitive |
| 137 | The morphological bulk of affixes for direct cases, measured in number of syllables, will not exceed that of affixes for oblique cases. | inflection | unconditional | case, direct, oblique, syllable |
| 149 | The number of inflectional classes of adjectives cannot be larger than the number of inflectional classes of nouns. | inflection | unconditional | inflection class, word class, adjective, noun |
| 161 | Overt marking of dative or spatial functions cannot be suspended when a referent is non-specific or indefinite. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | indirect object, spatial complement, indefinite, specific reference |
| 162 | Overt marking of dative or spatial functions does not alternate depending on whether the referent is partitive or non-partitive. |
inflection, syntax | unconditional | indirect object, spatial complement, dative, partitive |
| 163 | Overt marking of dative or spatial functions does not alternate depending on the polarity (positive/negative) of the clause. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | indirect object, spatial complement, affirmation, negation |
| 164 | Overt marking of dative or spatial functions (allative, locative) does not alternate depending on aspect (completive/incompletive). | inflection, syntax | unconditional | indirect object, allative, locative, aspect, completive, incompletive |
| 169 | When an adposition and a case affix are involved in a government relation, it is always the adposition that governs the affix rather than in reverse. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | adposition, case, affix, government |
| 221 | Every free root morpheme (in contrast to non-root morphemes) is expressed with more than one consonant phoneme. | phonology, morphology | unconditional | root, non-root, phoneme, consonant |
| 298 | Inversion of word order is always available to convey logical or emotional emphasis. | syntax, pragmatics | unconditional | order, inversion |
| 300 | Reduplication is used as a productive grammatical way of word formation and inflection. | morphology | unconditional | reduplication |
| 301 | Parataxis is used as a way of clause conjoining. |
syntax | unconditional | parataxis, juxtaposition, clause conjoining |
| 302 | General questions can be formed without inversion. | syntax | unconditional | order, inversion, yes-no question |
| 303 | Subjects in passive constructions tend to be encoded and to behave like subjects of basic intransitive constructions. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | subject, diathesis, voice, passive, transitivity |
| 310 | The citation form of the noun tends to be the nominative case form. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | noun, case, nominative, markedness |
| 311 | The citation form of the noun tends to be the indefinitive form, if indefinitive contrasts with other forms. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | noun, indefinitive |
| 314 | Indefinitiveness* tends to be expressed by zero. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | indefinitive, zero |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 386 | The most neutral position for focus in a language will be the position normally occupied by the direct object. | syntax, pragmatics | unconditional | focus, direct object |
| 393 | When there is the category of associative plural, it will only be used with singular definite nouns, such as proper names, titles, and names of relatives. | inflection | unconditional | number, plural, associative, noun, definite, proper |
| 397 | The more frequent and syntagmatically simple forms show paradigmatically complexity, the less frequent and syntagmatically complex forms show less paradigmatic complexity. | morphology | unconditional | frequency, complexity |
| 415 | Person-number cross-reference markers on possessed nouns are not prefixed. | inflection | unconditional | person, number, cross-reference, prefix, possessee |
| 461 | Verb taking an effected or annihilated object (in particular verbs meaning ‘to create’ and ‘to destroy’) are transitive in all relevant morphosyntactic respects. | inflection, syntax, semantics | unconditional | verb, transitive, effected object |
| 462 | With verbs with the general meaning 'destroy' or 'create', agents will be subject and patients direct object in basic (active) constructions. | inflection, syntax, semantics | unconditional | verb, transitivity, subject, direct object, agent, patient |
| 463 | The patient of verbs of creating and destroying is the subject in the passive voice, if there is one. | inflection, syntax, semantics | unconditional | diathesis, passive, transitivity, subject, direct object, agent, patient |
| 465 | With more than chance frequency, an NP with the semantic role of peregrinator (the one who moves) will be the subject of clauses with verbs meaning 'to move in a certain way'. | inflection, syntax, semantics | unconditional | subject, verb, transitivity |
| 466 | With more than chance frequency, in predications of class membership, the NP referring to the class member will be the subject and the class the predicate. | inflection, syntax, semantics | unconditional | subject, predicate |
| 467 | The subjects in predications of class membership are grammatically identical to subjects of intransitive verbs of state. | inflection, syntax, semantics | unconditional | subject, predication, transitivity, stative |
| 480 | When the head (lexical) verb in a progressive verb phrase is marked for tense, THEN it is marked as present tense. | inflection | unconditional | tense, present, aspect, progressive |
| 486 | When word order is rigid, regardless of whether the indirect or direct object is contiguous with the verb, the indirect object tends to be marked either extra- or intra-verbally | inflection, syntax | unconditional | direct object, indirect object, order, verb |
| 490 | In declarative sentences with nominal subject and object, the dominant order is always one in which the subject precedes the object. | syntax | unconditional | declarative sentence, order, subject, object |
| 496 | Every human language has a stock of elements that shift their denotations depending on elementary features of the speech situation – i.e., deictics. | lexicon | unconditional | deixis |
| 501 | In conditional statements, the conditional clause precedes the conclusion as the normal order in all languages. | syntax | unconditional | clause combining, conditional clause, order |