Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
68 entries · page 2 of 2
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 962 | IF there is vowel harmony, THEN there is typically no vowel reduction, and vice versa. | phonology | mutual implication | vowel harmony, vowel reduction |
| 972 | IF one type of head-dependent construction will be either head-marked or dependent-marked, THEN other types of head-dependent constructions will equally be either head-marked or dependent-marked. | inflection, syntax | mutual implication | head-marking, dependent-marking |
| 1031 | IF VO, THEN Non-tensedness, Non-casedness, WITH-Construction, and Non-Absolute Converb. IF Non-tensedness, THEN VO, Non-casedness, WITH-Construction, and Non-Absolute Converb. IF Non-casedness, THEN VO, Non-tensedness, WITH-Construction, and Non-Absolute Converb. IF AND-construction, THEN VO, Non-tensedness, Non-casedness, and Non-Absolute Converb. IF Non-Absolute Converb, THEN VO, Non-tensedness, Non-casedness, and WITH-Construction. |
inflection, syntax | mutual implication | order, VO, verb, object, non-tensedness, non-casedness, WITH-construction, converb |
| 1032 | IF basic word order OV, THEN Tensedness, Casedness, AND-Construction, and Absolute Converb. IF Tensedness, THEN basic word order OV, Casedness, AND-Construction, and Absolute Converb. IF Casedness, THEN basic word order OV, Tensedness, AND-Construction, and Absolute Converb. IF AND-construction, THEN basic word order OV, Tensedness, Casedness, and Absolute Converb. IF Absolute Converb, THEN basic word order OV, Tensedness, Casedness, and AND-Construction. |
inflection, syntax | mutual implication | order, OV, verb, object, tensedness, casedness, AND-construction, converb |
| 1035 | The climactic poles of the three accentual features tend to correlate with each other. Thus, e.g., where stress is predictable from vowel length, it is always the long degree which attracts stress. | prosodic phonology | mutual implication | stress, vowel, length, accent |
| 1056 | IF determiners and modifiers both agree with head nouns, THEN head nouns do not agree with attributive nouns. IF head nouns do not agree with attributive nouns, THEN both determiners and modifiers agree with head nouns. |
inflection, syntax | mutual implication | agreement, NP, determiner, modifier, attribution |
| 1100 | (holistic) Type A vs. Type B |
phonology, morphology, syntax | mutual implication | nasal vowel, syllable, order, attributive, adjective, noun, prefix, suffix, preposition, postposition, serial verb, number, compounding, consonant, agreement, subject |
| 1117 | IF there is no syntactic wh-movement, THEN there is special marking in yes-no questions, and vice versa. | syntax, morphology | mutual implication | interrogative, question particle, wh-movement |
| 1206 | Monotonicity correspondence universal: There is a simple NP which expresses the monotone decreasing quantifier ~Q if and only if there is a simple NP with a weak non-cardinal determiner which expresses the monotone increasing quantifier Q. |
syntax, semantics | mutual implication | quantification, monotonicity, determiner, negation |
| 1225 | IF there is a locative case, THEN there will be an allative, and vice versa. IF there is a locative case, THEN there will be an ablative, and vice versa. IF there is an allative case, THEN there will be an ablative, and vice versa. |
inflection | mutual implication | case system, local case, locative, ablative, allative |
| 1350 | IF adpositional phrases precede verbs, THEN overwhelmingly adverbs of manner precede verbs, and vice versa. IF adpositional phrases follow verbs, THEN – almost as overwhelmingly – also adverbs of manner follow verbs, and vice versa. |
syntax | mutual implication | order, manner adverb, adpositional phrase, verb, object |
| 1439 | IF there is no aspect differentiation, THEN there are continuous tenses. | inflection | mutual implication | aspect, tense, continuous |
| 1620 | IF null subjects is permissible (aka subject pro-drop), THEN the inflectional paradigms of verbs are morphologically uniform, and vice versa. | inflection, syntax | mutual implication | subject pro-drop, verb, paradigm |
| 1638 | IF basic order is verb-final, THEN there will be no WH-movement, and vice versa. | syntax | mutual implication | order, verb-final, Wh-movement |
| 1686 | In agreement conflicts due to conjuncts of different number and/or gender, IF there is number resolution, THEN there is also gender resolution, and vice versa. | inflection, syntax | mutual implication | number, gender, agreement, coordination |
| 1732 | In most languages the demonstrative pronoun and demonstrative adjective are identical. | syntax | mutual implication | demonstrative |
| 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 |
| 1954 | IF non-canonical marking with Class IIIa predicates, THEN also non-canonical marking with Class Ib predicates, and vice versa. | inflection, lexicon | mutual implication | case, agent, patient, subject, predicate |