Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
827 entries · page 16 of 17
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1870 | Baby talk has shorter sentences, fewer subordinate clauses, fewer grammatical relations, more repetitions than normal adult-to-adult speech, often omits inflections and function words, and the copula. | inflection, syntax, discourse | unconditional | baby talk, complexity, subordination, copula |
| 1871 | Every speech community seems to have a small lexicon of words used primarily with young children. The words of this special lexicon (i) fall into certain semantic areas (namely body parts, body functions, kin terms, food, animals, infant games), (ii) they include greater use of hypocoristic affixes, (iii) they are used more freely in different word class functions than the normal adult lexicon (esp. as parts of compound verbs with general purpose auxiliaries), and (iv) they tend to be phonologically simplified (simple canonical forms, esp. CVCV; substitution of marked sounds by less marked ones; special sounds; consonant and vowel harmony; reduplication). | phonology, syntax | unconditional | baby talk, hypocoristic, word class, complexity, markedness, consonant harmony, vowel harmony, reduplication |
| 1872 | Baby talk is also characterized by: high percentage of questions; frequent use of tags; here-and-now semantics; high semantic continuity between pairs of utterances; striking shifts in pronoun use (especially in alternatives for YOU). |
discourse | unconditional | baby talk |
| 1873 | The most striking – and apparently universal – variability is in what can be called "degree of babyishness". Changes in the degree of babyishness may reflect the age of the addressee, thenature of the situation, the speaker’s estimate of the linguistics abilities of the child, the strength of the affetive bound between the interactants, and so on. | discourse | unconditional | baby talk |
| 1874 | Core items of the baby talk register tend to persist for long periods of time. | lexicon | unconditional | baby talk |
| 1875 | Like other registers, baby talk or selected features of it may be extended to secondary uses, e.g. (i) to suggest the speech of children, (ii) in talking to pets, (iii) in coaxing other people or even objects to behave the way the speaker wants, (iv) in calling arttention to someone's childishnesss, (v) in adult intimate interaction such as talk between lovers. | discourse | unconditional | baby talk |
| 1876 | IF there is a 1st person exclusive dual, THEN there is also a 1st person inclusive dual. | morphology | implication | inclusive, exclusive, person, 1, number, dual |
| 1877 | Pronouns for 1st person inclusive plural may consist of 1st person plus 2nd person [singular] forms, but pronouns for 1st person inclusive dual may not. |
inflection | unconditional | inclusive, person, 1, 2, number, dual, plural |
| 1878 | In the coding of subordination vis-a-vis that of non-subordinate clauses: (a) If there is elimination of Aspect, then there is elimination of Tense and Mood. (b) If there is elimination of agreement, then there is elimination of Tense, Aspect, or Mood. (c) If there is case/adposition marking, then there is elimination of Tense, Aspect, or Mood. (d) If there is possessor/oblique coding, the there is elimination of Tense, Aspect, Mood or Agreement. |
syntax, inflection | implication | clause combining, subordination, tense, aspect, mood, agreement, case, adposition, possessor, oblique |
| 1879 | In the coding of subordination vis-a-vis that of non-subordinate clauses: (a) Case/adposition & agreement eliminated >> case/adposition marking & agreement maintained. (b) Arguments omitted & tense/aspect/mood eliminated >> arguments omitted & tense/aspect/mood maintained. (c) Arguments maintained & tense/aspect/mood eliminated >> arguments omitted & agreement maintained. (d) Arguments maintained & agreement maintained >> arguments omitted & agreement maintained. (where ‘>>’ means ‘is crosslinguistically more frequent than’) |
syntax, inflection | unconditional | clause combining, subordination, tense, aspect, mood, agreement, case, adposition |
| 1880 | Frequency hierarchy for the coding of subordination vis-a-vis that of non-subordinate clauses: elimination of tense/aspect/mood >> elimination of agreement distinctions, omission of verb arguments >> case/adposition marking on the verb >> coding of verb arguments as possessor or obliques. |
inflection, syntax | implicational hierarchy | clause combining, subordination, tense, aspect, mood, agreement, case, adposition, possessor, oblique |
| 1881 | In the coding of subordination vis-a-vis that of non-subordinate clauses, IF there is loss of subject-verb agreement and non-direct (but possessive/oblique) case marking of the subordinate subject, THEN there is loss of tense/aspect/mood, but not vice versa |
syntax, inflection | implication | clause combining, subordination, tense, aspect, mood, agreement, case, adposition, possessor, oblique |
| 1884 | IF there is an expletive subject, THEN there is some definite argument elsewhere in the clause. | syntax | implication | clause, expletive subject, definite argument |
| 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 |
| 1906 | IF there are prenasalized voiceless consonants only, THEN voicing is non-contrastive within the consonant system. OR: IF voicing is contrastive in the consonant system, THEN some prenasalized voiced stops will be present. |
phonology | implication | voice, prenasalized stop |
| 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 |
| 1911 | When comitative and instrumental are kept formally distinct and if one of the two forms part of the mode of expression of predicative possession, there is a 3:1 probability that it is the comitative that belongs to this pattern. | inflection, sysntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | case, comitative, instrumental, predicative possession |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 1923 | IF there is no definite article, THEN there is no indirect speech. | lexicon, discourse | implication | definite article, indirect speech |
| 1924 | IF there is no definite article, THEN there is no transitive verb of possession ('have'). | lexicon | implication | definite article, transitive verb of possesion |
| 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 |
| 1938 | IF there is a word-form borrowing of other than negative indefinite (excluding determiners), THEN it is likely that there will be a word-form borrowing of a negative indefinite of the same ontological category, too. | lexicon, morphology | implication | borrowing, indefinite pronoun, negative indefinite |
| 1939 | IF there is a word-form borrowing of an impersonal indefinite, THEN it is likely that there will be a word-form borrowing of a temporal indefinite of the same indefiniteness function, too. | lexicon, morphology | implication | borrowing, indefinite pronoun, impersonal indefinite, temporal indefinite |
| 1940 | IF there is a word-form borrowing of a local indefinite, THEN it is likely that there will be a word-form borrowing of an impersonal indefinite of the same indefiniteness function, too. | lexicon, morphology | implication | borrowing, indefinite pronoun, impersonal indefinite, local indefinite |
| 1942 | Indefinite word forms which synchronically contain an indefiniteness marker that already exists in the potential recipient language are more likely to be borrowed (and to be kept after they had been borrowed) than forms of the same function that do not contain such a marker. | lexicon, morphology | unconditional | borrowing, indefinite pronoun |
| 1952 | There can be no spread of plural marking to personal pronouns unless there is such plural marking on demonstrative pronouns; there can be no spread of plural marking to demonstrative pronouns unless there is such plural marking on (at least personal) nouns; there can be no spread of plural marking to 1st person personal pronouns unless there is such plural marking on 2nd person personal pronouns; there can be no spread of plural marking to inanimate nouns unless there is such plural marking on personal nouns. |
inflection | implication | plural, noun, animacy, demonstrative, personal pronoun, 1st person, 2nd person |
| 1956 | IF there is partial or complete denasalization of nasal consonants, THEN there is a contrast of oral and nasal vowels. | phonology | implication | vowel, nasal, oral, denasalization |
| 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 |
| 1961 | IF there is tone rather than stress accent, THEN there are no/few consonant clusters and no closed syllables other than ones closed by a nasal; IF there is stress accent rather than tone, THEN there will be consonant clusters and closed syllables, and much word-internal assimilation and dissimilation among consonants and other consonantal processes (such as articulatory strengthening in stressed syllables). |
phonology | implication | tone, stress accent, syllable structure, consonant cluster, assimilation, dissimilation |