Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
827 entries · page 17 of 17
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1967 | Within words (or also relevant other domains, such as stems), co-occurring vowels tend to be similar with respect to place and manner of articulation and laryngeal specification, while co-occurring consonants (adjacent as well as distant) tend to be dissimilar. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | phonotactics, vowel, consonant, word, assimilation, dissimilation |
| 1968 | Within lexical morphemes of the shape C1VC2V, the sonority of C1 tends to be less than that of C2, with C1 tending to be an obstruent and C2 a sonorant. | phonology | unconditional | phonotactics, sonority, word |
| 1974 | In a given language the grammatical categories of the verb (e.g., person, voice, mood, tense, negation) may be carried to a greater or lesser extent by auxiliary verbs or particles which co-occur with the verb. In an extreme case these categories may be carried by a dummy morph which has no apparent lexical meaning at all. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | verb, inflection, auxiliary |
| 1975 | There is a tendency for the existential, copulative, and verb-category carrying dummy elements of a language (a) synchronically to interpenetrate in complex patterns of suppletion, semantic overlapping, and partial homonymy, and (b) diachronically to merge, split, and otherwise restructure among themselves. | inflection, syntax, semantics | unconditional | verb, existence, copula, auxiliary, suppletion, homonymy |
| 1976 | There are severe limitations on the kinds of synchronic patterns and diachronic restructurings which may occur in existential-copulative-auxiliary systems, and such patterns and changes are related to syntactic characteristics of a very general typological nature. In other words, a particular pattern of constructions of 'being' tends to reflect the general syntactic character of the language, and changes in the pattern tend to form part of general typological shifts. | inflection, syntax, semantics | implication | verb, existence, copula, auxiliary |
| 1977 | Tenseless or present-tense copulative expressions connecting nouns are more likely to vary diachronically between zero and overt morphemic marking than other copulative expressions or existential or auxiliary expressions. On the one hand, the N1 is N2 construction is the most likely place for optional omission and eventual full deletion, and, on the other hand, when the language has a zero copula, this same construction is the most likely place for the appearance of a new copulative marker. | inflection, syntax, semantics | implication | |
| 1978 | An existential or copulative element tends to be omitted more often in a construction which involves a full predication such as a noun complement, a locative complement, or a clausal subject than otherwise. | syntax | implication | verb, existence, copula, zero |
| 1980 | Existential verbs of indefinite subjects tend toward clause-initial position. | syntax, semantics | unconditional | verb, existence, definiteness, subject, order |
| 1983 | In a language with optional omission of a copula (under the conditions of <a class="innerLink" href="browse.php?entry_id=1981"><img src="../img/entry.gif" border="0">), there is a tendency for the optional copula to appear between the subject and complement regardless of its position in constructions where it may not be omitted. | syntax | unconditional | copula, zero, order |
| 1984 | IF basic order is OV, THEN a frequently-used kind of subordinate clause is one with conjunctive verb forms. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, OV, subordination, conjunctive, |
| 1985 | IF basic order is OV, THEN there are compound verbs involving preverbs plus auxiliary. | syntax | implication | order, OV, compound verb, auxiliary, preverb |
| 1986 | IF basic order is OV, THEN sequences of events of the 'go, do, and return' type are expressed as 'having done, return'. IF basic order is VO, THEN sequences of events of the 'go, do, and return' type are expressed as 'go and do'. |
syntax | implication | order, OV, VO, clause combining, subordination, coordination |
| 1987 | IF basic order is OV, THEN plural marking on nouns is optional, and is avoided in particular when nouns are accompanied by numerals. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, OV, plural, numeral |
| 1988 | (i) IF subordinate clauses precede their main clauses, THEN quotations precede the quoting verb. (ii) IF there are conjunctive verb forms, THEN the conjunctive of a verb 'to say' is used as a quotation marker following after the quote. |
syntax | implication | order, subordination, speech reporting, quotative, verb, conjunctive |
| 1989 | IF the lexical items for existential or copulative function form a word class of their own, THEN its negative will be distinct from other negatives. | syntax | implication | word class, verb, copula, existence, negation |
| 1990 | IF the lexical items for existential or copulative function are lexically separate in the present tense, THEN they share a single past tense. | syntax | implication | verb, existence, copula, tense, present, past |
| 1991 | The negative of past tense forms of the lexical items for existential and copulative function tends to be more regular in formation than the present-tense negative. | inflection, syntax | implication | verb, existence, copula, negation, tense, past, present |
| 1992 | IF the lexical items for existential and copulative function are separate, and they are in a suppletive relation with verbs meaning 'become' and 'stay', then 'become' will be related to the copula and 'stay' to the existential verb. | inflection, syntax, lexicon | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | verb, existence, copula, suppletion |
| 1993 | In an SOV language with the lexical items for existential and copulative function separate, the Ex tends to be used as an auxiliary combining with the conjunctive to form 'present state' tenses of perfect or present continuous value; as such it tends to change from an independent following auxiliary to a tense-forming suffix. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | order, SOV, verb, existence, copula, auxiliary, conjunctive, tense, aspect, present, perfect, continuous, suffix |
| 1994 | The lexical meaning of adjectives is historically more stable than that of nouns, since it is simpler (simple property concepts vs. names for property bundles). On the other hand, adjectives become more easily obsolete than nouns and their diachronic turnover is faster than that of nouns, since when there is not much meaning in the first place its bleaching is tantamount to loss. Adjectives are more easily borrowed than nouns, since their meanings are simpler and easier to grasp. |
lexicon | implication | word class, adjective, noun, borrowing |
| 1995 | When gender distinctions are being neutralized in pronominal or other relevant paradigms by way of morphological replacement, non-human or neuter forms win out, replacing human/non-neuter forms, rather than vice versa. | inflection | unconditional | gender, neuter, animacy, markedness, neutralization |
| 1997 | It is more natural for a two-term gender distinction in the plural, human vs. non-human, to come about, through semantic reanalysis, from the two-term distinction human male vs. other than the other way round. | inflection, syntax, semantics | target < source | gender, animacy, human, masculine, feminine |
| 2005 | The higher the (simple) cardinal numerals, the unlikelier they are to agree in gender. | inflection, syntax | implication | numeral, agreement, gender |
| 2006 | IF an agreement target can agree [in gender, number, or whatever], THEN typically it must agree, even if the agreement controller lacks the appropriate features. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, gender, number |
| 2014 | IF augmentatives/diminutives can be formed from Determiners, THEN they can also be formed from Adverbs, Numerals, Pronouns, or Interjections;IF from Adverbs, Numerals, Pronouns, or Interjections, THEN also from Adjectives or Verbs;IF from Adjectives or Verbs, THEN from Nouns. | word formation | implicational hierarchy | augmentative, diminutive, word class, noun, adjective, verb, adverb, numeral, pronoun, interjection, determiner |
| 2015 | IF the attributive noun (genitive, esp. when morphologically unmarked) precedes the head noun, THEN (i) nominal affixes (for case, number, gender/class) and adpositions are postposed (suffixes, postpositions), (ii) pronominal possessives precede the head noun, (iii) attributive adjectives precede the head noun, (iv) verbal affixes (person, number) and pronouns (for subject) precede the verb, (v) direct objects (accusative, esp. when morphologically unmarked) precede the verb. IF the attributive noun (genitive, esp. when morphologically unmarked) follows the head noun, THEN (i) nominal affixes (for case, number, gender/class) and adpositions are preposed (prefixes, prepositions), (ii) pronominal possessives follow the head noun, (iii) attributive adjectives follow the head noun, (iv) verbal affixes (person, number) and pronouns (for subject) follow the verb, (v) direct objects (accusative, esp. when morphologically unmarked) follow the verb. |
syntax, culture/mind | implication | order, attribution, possessive, genitive, object, adjective |
| 2031 | IF there are word-initial geminates, THEN there are also medial geminates. | phonology | implication | consonant, geminate, word |