Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
827 entries · page 2 of 17
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 131 | IF an argument retains its sentential head-marking in an action nominalization, THEN the same argument will also retain its sentential dependent-marking. | inflection, syntax | implication | nominalization, head-marking, dependent-marking |
| 132 | IF action nominalizations are of the sentential type, with all arguments retaining their sentential dependent-marking, THEN basic order will be SOV and Genitive Noun. | inflection, syntax | implication | nominalization, dependent-marking, order, SOV, attributive, genitive |
| 133 | In action nominalizations, IF the S argument receives sentential dependent-marking, THEN the A and P arguments are unlikely to receive non-sentential marking, and vice versa; while IF the S argument receives genitive marking, THEN the A and P arguments are likely to receive sentential marking, and vice versa. | inflection, syntax | mutual implication | nominalization, dependent-marking, genitive |
| 134 | IF there is ergative alignment, THEN action nominalizations are likely to be of the SENT or SENT-POSS types and unlikely to be of the POSS-ACC or NOMN types. | inflection, syntax | implication | nominalization, alignment, ergative-absolutive, agent, case, genitive |
| 135 | IF non-pronominal subjects (S) and agents (A) are genitivized in action nominalizations, THEN pronominal ones are genitivized as well. | inflection, syntax | implication | nominalization, case, genitive, pronoun<br> |
| 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 |
| 138 | IF there are de-verbal case markers others than locatives, THEN there will be de-verbal locative case markers. | inflection | implication | case, locative, grammaticalization, serial verb |
| 145 | IF basic order is SOV, THEN predicative adjectives have non-verbal status, and vice versa. IF basic order is SVO or VSO, THEN predicative adjectives tend to be verbal, and vice versa. |
inflection, syntax | mutual implication | order, SOV, SVO, VSO, predicative adjective, verb |
| 146 | IF basic order is SOV, THEN adjectives can be the head of NPs. IF basic order is SVO or VSO, THEN adjectives tend to be unable to be heads of NPs and to require a dummy head noun ('thing', 'person', 'one'). |
syntax | implication | order, SOV, SVO, VSO, NP, head, adjective, dummy head noun |
| 153 | IF nouns share inflectional properties with adjectives, THEN they also share these properties with determiners. | inflection | implication | word class, noun, adjective, determiner |
| 170 | IF there are case affixes on nouns, THEN they are almost always suffixed. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | case, noun, affix-order, suffix |
| 172 | When alignment is ergative/absolutive, IF the verb agrees with the ergative, THEN it agrees with the absolutive. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, verb, alignment, ergative, absolutive |
| 173 | IF there are prepositions, THEN IF the demonstrative follows the noun, THEN the genitive follows the noun. | syntax | nested implication | preposition, order, noun, demonstrative, attributive |
| 174 | IF there are prepositions, THEN the numeral follows the noun, THEN the genitive follows the noun. | syntax | nested implication | preposition, order, noun, numeral, attributive |
| 180 | IF there is case marking for subject vs. object, THEN basic order is SOV. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, SOV, case, subject, direct object |
| 181 | IF the marker for NP conjunction has the same form as the comitative marker, THEN basic order is SVO and not SOV. | syntax | mutual implication | order, SVO, NP, coordination, conjunction, comitative |
| 182 | IF adnominal genitival complements are neither marked by case nor by coreference on the head-NP, THEN basic order tends to be SVO. | inflection, syntax | implication | attributive, case, genitive, NP, order, head-marking, agreement, SVO |
| 185 | When there are analogical changes in the inflectional paradigms of place names, non-local cases (including the nominative) are generally reformed after local cases (such as the dative), rather than the other way round. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | place name, nominative case, local case, non-local case, analogical change |
| 191 | IF there are syncretisms involving local cases other than those mentioned in the implicatum, THEN there will be syncretisms of ablative and prolative, locative and allative, and/or ablative and partitive. | inflection | implication | case, local case, ablative, prolative, locative, allative, ablative, partitive, syncretism |
| 192 | A relation that is higher on the hierarchy of centrality (subject-object > local relations; locative > ablative; ...) than another one will not be expressed lower down on the grammatical-to-lexical hierarchy of expression (word order > verbal coding > case > adpositions > ...). | inflection, syntax | implicational hierarchy | grammatical relations, local relations, word order, case, adposition |
| 196 | IF basic order is OV, THEN syllable structure is simple (tending towards CV). | phonology, syntax | implication | order, OV, syllable, complexity |
| 207 | IF basic order is VO, THEN syllable structure is complex (permitting initial and final consonant clusters). | phonology, syntax | implication | order, VO, syllable, complexity |
| 208 | IF basic order is OV, THEN there will be pitch accent. IF basic order is VO, THEN there will be stress accent, accompanied by reduction of unstressed vowels. |
phonology, syntax | implication | order, VO, OV, pitch accent, stress, vowel reduction |
| 209 | IF there is an opposition of two vowels of the same aperture, THEN there is a corresponding vocalic opposition of a narrower degree of aperture. | phonology | implication | vowel, degree of aperture, narrow |
| 210 | IF there is no differentiation of unrounded vowels according to degree of aperture, THEN there is no such a difference for the rounded vowels. | phonology | implication | rounded, unrounded, vowel, degree of aperture |
| 212 | IF there is a vocalic opposition, THEN there is a consonantal opposition. | phonology | implication | vocalic, consonantal, opposition |
| 218 | IF there are mellow fricatives, THEN there are corresponding strident fricatives. | phonology | implication | mellow, strident, fricative |
| 232 | IF constituent order is rigid and there is no case inflection, THEN there is a definite article, but not vice versa. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, case, definite article |
| 240 | IF there is ergative case marking, THEN with far more than chance frequency there is divergent ordering of genitive and adjective attributes, with genitives preceding and with adjectives following their head nouns; IF there is divergent genitive and adjective ordering, THEN supposedly with somewhat lower frequency, there is ergative case marking. |
inflection, syntax | implication | ergative case, order, attributive, adjective, noun |
| 246 | IF constituent order is free, THEN words tend to be longer. | morphology, syntax | implication | word length, order |
| 247 | IF there is an accusative case distinct from the nominative, THEN there is a category of gender. | inflection, syntax | implication | gender, case, accusative, nominative |
| 260 | IF alignment is predominantly ergative, THEN verbal person marking is by prefixes or by both prefixes and suffixes. |
inflection, syntax | implication | alignment, ergative, verb, inflection, person, prefix, suffix |
| 261 | IF alignment is predominantly ergative, THEN of verbal person markers those for object (if present) almost always precede those for subject. |
inflection, syntax | implication | alignment, ergative, verb, person, affix-order, subject, object |
| 262 | IF alignment is predominantly ergative, THEN there tend to be: possessive and affective verbs (verba habendi and verba sentiendi) in syntactic constructions distinct from that of verbs of action; a special affective case; nouns divided into lexical classes; "labile" (or "diffuse") verbs rather than a classification of verbs as transitive and intransitive; an opposition of inclusive and exclusive in the 1st person plural. | inflection, syntax, lexicon | implication | alignment, ergative, verb, affective verb, possessive verb, labile verb, affective case, noun class, personal pronouns, exclusive, inclusive, 1st person, transitivity |
| 263 | IF alignment is predominantly ergative, THEN there tend to be: (i) a special morphological category of words syntactically connected with nouns (i.e., attributive forms of verbs, adjectives, pronouns); (ii) an opposition of alienable and inalienable possession; (iii) number agreement of transitive verbs with direct object and of intransitive verbs with subject (perhaps expressed by suppletion of the verb stem). | inflection, syntax | implication | alignment, ergative, attribution, possession, alienable, inalienable, agreement, number, transitive verb, intransitive verb, subject, direct object, suppletion |
| 265 | IF alignment is predominantly active, THEN there tend to be the following properties as well: the class of inactive nouns is further subdivided by shape categories; the class of active nouns is further subdivided by animacy (person vs. animal); there are singular and plural verbs in suppletive relationship; there are polysemies of nouns based on analogies existing between animal and plant organisms and their functions. | inflection, syntax, lexicon | implication | alignment, active, noun, noun classification, active, inactive, animacy, verbal number, suppletion, polysemy |
| 268 | IF any other meanings are expresssed by productive reduplication, THEN the meaning ‘change of degree or quantity’ is also expressed thus. | morphology, semantics | implication | reduplication |
| 269 | IF the plural of (personal) pronouns is not formed by suppletion, THEN these pronominal plural markers are the same as those used for nouns. |
inflection | implication | noun, pronoun, number, plural, suppletion |
| 273 | IF there is any person or number distinction in the forms of a non-indicative mood, THEN there will be the same distinctions in the indicative mood. | inflection | implication | verb, person, number, mood, indicative, non-indicative |
| 277 | IF there is a regular number distinction in the forms of the adjective or of the verb, THEN there is the same distinction in the forms of the noun. | inflection | implication | number, adjective, verb, noun |
| 287 | IF a causative morpheme is unproductive in relation to transitives, forming from them a relatively small (closed) group of trivalent causatives, THEN verbs denoting abstract action and verbs of concrete action denoting the consumption of food will usually be among these transitive bases. |
morphology, semantics | implication | transitivity, causative, valency |
| 289 | IF a causative morpheme can express permissiveness, THEN it can usually also express factitivity. | morphology, semantics | implication | causative, permissive, factitive |
| 290 | IF there is postconsonantal aspiration, THEN there is prevocalic aspiration. | phonology | implication | /h/, aspiration, consonant, vowel |
| 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 |
| 307 | Passive verbal forms tend not to be morphologically more complex than corresponding active forms. | inflection | implication | diathesis, active, passive, complexity |
| 309 | IF active and passive voices differ from each other in the form of nominal actants, THEN they differ in verb form as well. | inflection, syntax | implication | diathesis, active, passive, verb |
| 310 | The citation form of the noun tends to be the nominative case form. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | noun, case, nominative, markedness |
| 312 | IF there is a noun form for use as as subject of intransitive verbs of state, THEN this form will also be used for intransitive verbs of action. | inflection, syntax | implication | subject, intransitivity, verb, active, stative |
| 313 | IF there is a noun form for use as as subject of intransitive verbs of action, THEN this form will also be used for intransitive verbs of state. | inflection, syntax | implication | subject, intransitivity, verb, active, stative |
| 314 | Indefinitiveness* tends to be expressed by zero. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | indefinitive, zero |