Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
1,237 entries · page 16 of 25
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1131 | When nouns and pronouns can be incorporated, they have a special incorporated form (uninflected in the case of nouns) as distinct from their absolute form. |
morphology, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | incorporation, pronoun, noun |
| 1132 | IF subjects and objects can be incorporated into verbs, THEN they are not case-marked when occurring absolutely or they are case-marked and case marking shows ergative alignment. | inflection, syntax | implication | incorporation, subject, object, verb, case, alignment, ergative |
| 1133 | IF there is noun/pronoun incorporation, THEN the relationship between the verbal complex (including the incorporated noun/pronoun) and an absolute NP corresponding to the incorporated noun/pronoun is appositive. |
inflection, syntax | implication | incorporation, apposition |
| 1134 | IF a 3rd person pronoun can be incorporated when a corresponding absolute noun is present, THEN it can also be incorporated when a corresponding absolute noun is absent. | inflection, syntax | implication | incorporation, noun, pronoun, person, 3 |
| 1135 | IF the dual is conceived of as a paucal limited to two, THEN it will be conceived of as an ambal. |
inflection | implication | number, dual, paucal, ambal |
| 1136 | IF only one person differentiates a dual, THEN it will be the 1st person. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | number, dual, pronoun, person, 1, 2, 3 |
| 1137 | IF only two persons differentiate a dual, THEN the 1st is much likelier to be one of them than the 3rd. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | number, dual, pronoun, person, 1, 2, 3 |
| 1139 | IF the dual extends to all number-inflecting personal pronouns and nouns, THEN it will be conceived of as a duo-paucal rather than as an ambal. | inflection, semantics | implication | number, dual, paucal, ambal, pronoun, noun |
| 1140 | IF the dual is conceived of as a paucal limited to two referents, THEN it will extend to all persons of the pronoun and all classes of nouns inflecting for number. | inflection, semantics | implication | number, dual, paucal, pronoun, person, noun |
| 1141 | IF the nominal dual is restricted to nouns other than those denoting natural pairs, THEN dual marking is avoided with these nouns if contextually redundant. | inflection | implication | number, dual, noun, pair |
| 1142 | The passive-to-ergative change is unidirectional. There are no passive constructions which have been shown to have developed from ergative constructions. | inflection, syntax | target < source | diathesis, passive, alignment, ergative |
| 1143 | IF a verbal morpheme has both reflexive and passive use, THEN it will also have the anticausative use. | inflection, syntax | implication | morpheme, reflexive, passive, anticausative |
| 1147 | A causative can become a passive, but a passive cannot become a causative. | inflection, syntax | target < source | passive, causative |
| 1148 | IF there are passives of stative verbs, THEN there are passives of activity verbs. | syntax, semantics | implication | diathesis, passive, verb, stative, active |
| 1150 | IF there are passives covering imperfective meanings, THEN there are passives covering the perfective range of meaning. | syntax, semantics | implication | diathesis, passive, perfective, imperfective |
| 1152 | IF there is a basic passive, THEN ditransitive verbs (e.g. ‘give’, ‘show’) are passivized in such a way that the derived subject is the Patient of the active verb. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | diathesis, passive, ditransitive verb, patient |
| 1153 | IF sentential objects can be passivized, THEN lexical NP objects can also be passivized. |
syntax | implication | diathesis, passive, object |
| 1154 | IF there is a distributive-share word, THEN there will be a distributive-share numeral word. | lexicon | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | quantifier, distributive, numeral |
| 1155 | IF basic order is VO, THEN the position of the result predicate is V-adjacent or at the end of the VP. IF basic order is OV, THEN the position of the result predicate is invariably V-adjacent. |
syntax | implication | order, VO, OV, result predicate |
| 1156 | For any given noun phrase, IF it is numerable THEN it is definitizable, and IF it is definitizable THEN it is pronominalizable. | inflection, syntax | implication | number, plural, definite, pronoun |
| 1158 | IF a resumptive pronoun in the relative clause occurs in cases where the identical element is subject or object of the clause, THEN it occurs in cases where the relative pronoun has some other function. | syntax | implication | relative clause, pronoun |
| 1159 | IF an obligatorily definite identical noun phrase occurs in the preposed main sentences of a relative construction, THEN it also occurs in postposed ones. | syntax | implication | relative clause, order, definite NP |
| 1160 | If the definiteness of the head determines the shape of the relative pronoun, the pronoun co-occurring with the definite head will be “longer“, i.e. it will contain some additional morphological element. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | relative clause, pronoun |
| 1161 | IF a head noun and its relative clause agree in definiteness, THEN head nouns and attributive adjectives also agree in definiteness. |
inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, definiteness, relative clause, adjective, attribution |
| 1162 | IF the indefinite article is derived from the cardinal 'one', THEN non-numerable nouns cannot take indefinite article. | syntax | implication | indefinite article, numeral |
| 1163 | Indefinite articles are generally short; that is, they never have more than two syllables. | phonology, syntax | unconditional | indefinite article |
| 1164 | Any noun that is pronominalizable may take a definite article, but of these, only those that are numerable may take an indefinite article. | syntax | implication | indefinite article |
| 1165 | IF an overt indefinite article is used with mass nouns, THEN it is also used with plural nouns. | inflection, syntax | implication | indefinite article, number, plural, mass noun |
| 1166 | IF an overt indefinite article is used with plural nouns, THEN it is also used with singular nouns. | inflection, syntax | implication | indefinite article, number, plural, singular noun |
| 1168 | Vocative nouns (or NPs) take no article or only the definite article, never the indefinite article. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | vocative, definite article |
| 1170 | IF there is definiteness contrast for noun-phrases other than object, THEN there is definiteness contrast in the object noun phrase. | syntax | implication | object, definiteness |
| 1171 | IF there is a definiteness marker on the verb or adjective, THEN there is some other definiteness marker. | syntax | implication | definiteness marker, verb, adjective |
| 1172 | IF there are simple and distributive-key universal quantifiers, and the two are morphologically related, THEN the distributive-key quantifier is derived from the simple universal quantifier by a morphosyntactic process. | lexicon | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | quantifier, distributive, universal |
| 1173 | IF there is a distributive-key universal quantifier, THEN there will be a simple universal quantifier. |
lexicon | implication | quantifier, distributive, universal |
| 1174 | IF there is simple and distributive-share universal quantifiers, THEN the distributive-share universal quantifier is derived from the simple universal quantifier by a morphosyntactic process. | lexicon | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | quantifier, distributive, universal |
| 1175 | IF there is a morphosyntactic process P to form a distributive-share universal quantifier, THEN there also will be P to form distributive-share numerals, distributive-share non-cardinal quantifiers, and distributive-share expressions of non-quantificational meanings. | lexicon | implication | quantifier, distributive, universal |
| 1176 | IF there is a distributive-share universal quantifier, THEN there will be a simple universal quantifier. | lexicon | implication | quantifier, distributive, universal |
| 1177 | BACK > FRONT > UP, IN > DOWN. If any one of the five concepts is derived from the body-part model, then none of the concepts to its left may be derived from the landmark or any other model. |
lexicon | target < source | spatial orientation, body part |
| 1184 | IF there is a separate term for ‘leg’ (as opposed to ‘foot’), THEN there is a term for ‘arm’ (as opposed to ‘hand’). | lexicon | implication | body parts |
| 1185 | IF there is a separate term for ‘foot’, THEN there is also one for ‘hand’. | lexicon | implication | body parts |
| 1186 | IF there are terms for individual toes, THEN there are terms for individual fingers. | lexicon | implication | body parts |
| 1187 | Basic word orders OSV and OVS do not occur at all, while SVO, SOV, VSO, and VOS are all attested. That is: IF the object precedes the subject in basic order, THEN the verb is initial. |
syntax | implication | order, verb, subject, object |
| 1188 | When expressions for deictic orientation are derived forms, they may derive from terms for body parts or environmental landmarks but never from terms for celestial or atmospheric phenomena. | lexicon | target < source | location, deixis |
| 1189 | When terms for deictic and cardinal orientation are related, the terms for cardinal orientation are derived from terms for deictic orientation, but not vice versa. | lexicon | target < source | orientation, deixis |
| 1190 | When sun and wind provide templates for developing nomenclatures for orientation, they will be sources for terms of cardinal but not of deictic orientation. | lexicon | target < source | location, deixis |
| 1191 | In all cultures/languages, there is a hierarchy of terms referring to the animal and plant kingdoms (and perhaps other domains of folk taxonomies) with at least a superordinate (life form), a basic (generic), and a subordinate (specific) level. The basic level terms have the highest salience (e.g. are the ones used most frequently, are shortest and morphologically least complex). |
lexicon | unconditional | (biological) folk taxonomy |
| 1192 | IF there is a logophoric form for 1st and/or 2nd person pronouns, THEN also for the 3rd person pronoun. | inflection, syntax | implication | pronoun, logophoric, person, 1, 2, 3 |
| 1193 | IF there is reciprocal marking for 1st person, THEN also for 2nd person. IF there is reciprocal marking for 2nd person, THEN also for 3rd person. |
inflection, syntax | implication | pronoun, reciprocal, person, 1, 2, 3 |
| 1194 | IF non-subject can control reflexives/reciprocals, THEN subjects can, too. | syntax | implication | control, reflexive, reciprocal, subject |
| 1195 | IF a reflexive/reciprocal can be an indirect object and/or circumstantial, THEN a reflexive/reciprocal can also be either direct object or possessive. | syntax | implication | reflexive, reciprocal, indirect object, circumstantial, direct object, possessive |