Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
253 entries · page 2 of 6
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 644 | IF there is variation of the category of person in personal pronouns so as to show degrees of respect or social distance, THEN there is variation of number for the same purpose. | inflection, semantics | implication | personal pronoun, person, number, respect, social distance |
| 647 | IF 3rd person personal pronoun is used to show greater respect or social distance than the 2nd person pronoun in reference to the addressee, THEN this use is usually introduced by substitution of nouns or nominal expressions used in respectful address. | inflection, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | personal pronoun, person, number, respect, social distance, addressee |
| 674 | IF lexical items are more stable than other items in one language family, THEN these items are among the more stable items in another language family. | lexicon | implication | word |
| 689 | IF [w] becomes a fricative or determines the place of articulation of adjacent fricatives, THEN it shows itself primarily as a labial. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | fricative, labial, place of articulation |
| 716 | IF any further grammatical oppositions are expressed in forms marked for dual number, THEN the same oppositions will also be expressed in forms marked for plural number. | inflection | implication | number, dual, plural, inclusive, exclusive, gender, case |
| 721 | IF there is a deictic salience of the 2nd person, THEN there is a category of inclusive. | inflection, syntax | implication | person hierarchy, 2 person, inclusive |
| 728 | Laterals [liquids] tend to occur in the neighborhood of consonants whereas nonlaterals tend to occur in the neighborhood of vowels. | phonology | unconditional | liquid, lateral, consonant, vowel |
| 763 | Palatal noninjective stops have a strong tendency to be replaced by alveopalatal affricates. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | palatal, injective, stop, alveopalatal, affricate, noninjective |
| 768 | When ... the injective in the dental or alveolar position has become retracted and/or retroflexed, there is a tendency for its glottalic feature to be lost since it has become redundant. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | injective, glottalic, dental, alveolar, retracted, retroflexed |
| 805 | IF there are back consonants, THEN there will be front consonants. | phonology | implication | back, front, consonant |
| 808 | IF there is an opposition of a stop and an affricate, THEN there will be a fricative of the same series. | phonology | implication | affricate, stop, fricative |
| 811 | IF there are fricatives, THEN there will be stops. | phonology | implication | fricative, stop |
| 812 | IF there is vocalic opposition of wide vs. narrow, THEN there are two consonantal oppositions: nasal vs. oral stops and labials vs. dentals. | phonology | implication | narrow, wide, vowel, nasal, oral, stop, labial, dental |
| 819 | IF there are diphthongs, THEN there are or were long vowels. | phonology | implication | vowel, long, diphthong |
| 919 | The more numerous the contrastive segments, the shorter the average length of a word. | phonology, morphology | mutual implication | word length, phoneme inventory |
| 926 | IF syllabic consonants are created by syncope in stressed syllables, THEN they have been created by stress in unsyncopated syllables. | phonology | implication | consonant, syllabic, syncope, stress |
| 927 | IF stressed syllabic consonants become non-syllabic or are lost, THEN nonstressed syllabic consonants have become nonsyllabic or have been lost. | prosodic phonology | implication | consonant, syllabic, stress |
| 929 | The source of syllabicity in syllabic consonants is always a vowel, either directly, when a vowel changes into a consonant (consonantalization), or else indirectly, when a vowel is lost and its syllabicity is transferred to a consonant (syllabic syncope). | phonology | unconditional | syllable, vowel, syllabic, consonant, syncope |
| 930 | A consonant may become syllabic only if it is an adjacent margin of a syncopated vowel. | phonology | implication | syllable, vowel, syllabic, consonant, syncope |
| 931 | If in a given context nasal-vowel (NV) sequences occur, and /u/ represents the highest back rounded vowel appearing in these sequences, then: A. NV > N§ ⇒ mu > N§ or ˜u > N§, and B. NVlow > N§ ⇒ NVnonlow > N§ , and similarly for contexts containing vowel-nasal sequences. |
phonology | implication | nasal, vowel, high, back, syllabic, consonant |
| 937 | IF a vowel undergoes consonantalization, THEN it must be a high one. | phonology | implication | vowel, consonantalization, syllabic, consonant |
| 939 | Secondary nasal consonants are, apart from borrowing and analogical formations, always the result of diachronic developments from clusters. | phonology | target < source | consonant, nasal |
| 943 | Nasal vowels, apart from borrowing and analogical formations, always result from the loss of a Primary Nasal Consonant. | phonology | target < source | consonant, nasal, vowel |
| 944 | A nasal syllabic phoneme, apart from borrowings and analogical formations, always results from the loss of a vowel. | phonology | target < source | nasal syllabic, vowel |
| 945 | Nasalized vowels always arise from a sequence of vowel and nasal consonant origin. | phonology | target < source | nasalized, vowel, nasal, consonant |
| 946 | IF there is a merger of oral vowels, THEN there is a merger of the corresponding nasal vowels if they exist. | phonology | implication | oral, vowel, nasal, consonant |
| 947 | When nasal and oral vowels merge unconditionally, the result is always an oral vowel. | phonology | unconditional | oral, vowel, nasal |
| 948 | When there is i and ü, i may originate from ü but not ü from i. | phonology | target < source | high, front, vowel |
| 949 | The more a language is fusional, the more phonological rules are needed to serve morphological fusion. | phonology, morphology | implication | fusion |
| 950 | IF either inflectional morphology or derivational morphology is served by prosodic rules of stress shift, then typically either new phonological rules emerge or old phonological rules are put to new uses, or both. | phonology, word formation, inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | stress |
| 964 | Apart from remaining what it is, the numeral ‘one’ can only be reanalysed as an indefinite article (and/or pronoun). | lexicon, syntax | target < source | numeral, indefinite, article, pronoun |
| 965 | Definite articles are often synchronically identical with or clearly related to demonstratives which are also in the overwhelming majority of cases derived from demonstratives historically. | lexicon | target < source | article, demonstrative, definite |
| 973 | When there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, the number of synonymous morphemes (stems and affixes) is more likely to diminish than to increase. | morphology | unconditional | stem, affix, allomorphy, inflection class, synonymy, analogical change |
| 974 | When there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, long morphemes (stems and affixes) or words are more likely to replace short or non-existent morphemes (stems and affixes) or words than the other way round. | morphology | unconditional | stem, affix, morpheme, word, length, analogical change |
| 975 | When there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, short morphemes (stems and affixes) or words more likely cause a re-formation of long morphemes (stems and affixes) or words than the other way round. | morphology | unconditional | stem, affix, morpheme, word, length, analogical change |
| 976 | When there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, the forms (stems and affixes) of singular are more likely to be replaced than forms of other numbers. |
morphology | unconditional | stem, affix, number, singular, non-singular, analogical change |
| 977 | When there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, the forms (stems and affixes) of 3rd person are more likely to be replaced than forms of other persons. |
morphology | unconditional | stem, affix, person, 3, analogical change |
| 978 | When there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, the forms (stems and affixes) of indicative forms are more likely to be replaced than the forms of other moods. | morphology | unconditional | stem, affix, indicative, non-indicative, mood, analogical change |
| 979 | When there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, the forms (stems and affixes) of local cases of place names are more likely to be replaced than forms of local cases of common nouns. |
morphology | unconditional | case, local case, place names, common noun, analogical change |
| 980 | When there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, the forms of non-local cases of common nouns are more likely to be replaced than stems and affixes of non-local cases of place names. | morphology | unconditional | case, local case, place names, common nouns, analogical change |
| 981 | When there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, the stems and affixes of common nouns are more likely to be replaced than stems and affixes of proper/personal names. |
morphology | unconditional | common nouns, proper names, personal names, common nouns, analogical change |
| 1009 | IF dentals are spirantized, THEN labials and velars are most likely spirantized as well. | phonology | implication | spirantization |
| 1010 | No matter which direction the process ( d⇔ð, t⇔† ) is going, the stop outcome is favoured by word-initial, post-nasal or post-liquid stressed positions. The spirant outcome is favoured by post-vocalic positions, including intervocalic, pre-consonantal and pre-junctural. | phonology | unconditional | spirantization |
| 1011 | Pidginization processes tend to replace fricatives other than s by stops. | phonology | unconditional | spirantization, pidginization |
| 1018 | When there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, the forms (stems and affixes) of inferior numerals are more likely to replace the forms (stems and affixes) of superior numerals than the other way round. | morphology | implication | stem, affix, numeral, analogical change |
| 1019 | When there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, the forms (stems and affixes) of cardinal numerals are more likely to replace the forms (stems and affixes) of ordinal numerals than the other way round. | morphology | implication | stem, affix, numeral, ordinal, cardinal, analogical change |
| 1020 | When there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, the forms (stems and affixes) of the present are more likely to replace the forms of the other tenses than the other way round. | morphology | implication | stem, affix, tense, present, non-present, analogical change |
| 1090 | IF a low vowel in nasalized, THEN it is raised. | phonology | implication | vowel, nasalization |
| 1091 | The general tendency for a cluster of consonant and nasal is either to (i) retain the nasality (by weakening or deleting the consonant), or (ii) to lose the nasality (when the preceding consonant is stronger than the nasal). | phonology | unconditional | consonant cluster, nasal |
| 1101 | IF there is a high number of vowel distinctions which are perceptually close to each other, THEN the addition of distinctive vowel nasalization creates an unstable system leading to elimination of distinctively nasal vowels or reducing the number of oral vowels (which is rare). | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | nasal, vowel, nasalization |