Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
2,017 entries · page 22 of 41
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1062 | IF verbs agree in Gender, THEN they are likelier to agree than not to agree in Person. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, verb, person, gender |
| 1063 | Whenever NP-internal constituents agree in only a single category, this will not be Definiteness; it will most likely be Number. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | agreement, NP, number, definiteness |
| 1064 | Whenever there is agreement both within clauses and within NPs, IF NP-constituents agree in Number, THEN clause constituents will almost certainly also agree in Number. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, NP, clause, number |
| 1065 | Whenever there is agreement both within clauses and within NPs, IF clause-constituents agree in number, THEN NP constituents are very likely also to agree in number. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, NP, clause, number |
| 1066 | Whenever predicates agree with subjects in number and there is a politeness contrast for pronouns of address, with plural forms serving as polite singulars, the more verb-like a predicate the likelier it is to agree according to surface features of the subject (i.e., to be plural), and the more noun-like a predicate the likelier it is to agree according to the referential semantics of the subject (i.e., to be singular). | inflection, syntax, semantics | unconditional | agreement, number, politeness |
| 1067 | Provided stress is phonologically predictable (i.e., demarcative), it will most likely fall on initial syllables, somewhat less commonly on final syllables or on penultimate syllables, rarely on second syllables, and never on others. | prosodic phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | stress, syllable |
| 1068 | Synchronic stress shifts may be from final to other (often penultimate) syllables or from second to other (often initial) syllables, but never the other ways around. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, syllable |
| 1069 | IF there is a rule placing stress on antepenultimate syllables, THEN there is stress on words consisting of only one or two syllables. | prosodic phonology | implication | stress, syllable |
| 1070 | IF syllables tend to weaken before stress, THEN they also weaken after stress. | prosodic phonology | implication | stress, syllable |
| 1071 | IF there is a contrast between light and heavy syllables, THEN there is a contrast of vowel length. | prosodic phonology | implication | syllable, vowel, vowel quantity, syllable weight |
| 1072 | IF there is a contrast between light and heavy syllables, THEN there is a contrast of consonant length. | prosodic phonology | implication | syllable, consonant, consonant quantity, syllable weight |
| 1073 | Provided stress is sensitive to syllable weight, IF stress can be passed onto neighboring syllables by syllables of any other structure THEN it can be passed on by syllables consisting of a short vowel in open syllable position. | prosodic phonology | implication | stress, syllable, vowel, vowel quantity, syllable weight |
| 1074 | Provided both stress and quantity are distinctive, either stress distinctions will be limited in terms of quantity (to either long or short vowels) or quantity distinctions will be limited in terms of stress (to stressed syllables only). | prosodic phonology | mutual limitation | stress, syllable, quantity |
| 1075 | While a tone can be restricted in occurrence by an adjacent voiced vs. voiceless consonant, no stress language assigns stress on such a basis. Stress will generally be assigned without reference to segmentals except in two potential situations: (i) there is severe articulatory conflict, and (ii) there is perceptual conflict from within the phonological system. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, tone, consonant |
| 1076 | Syllabification across word boundaries is likelier when stress is non-demarcative than when it is demarcative. |
prosodic phonology | implication | stress, syllabification, word boundary |
| 1077 | Syllabification across a word boundary may be less likely in a language with initial stress than in a language with final stress. | prosodic phonology | implication | stress, syllabification, word boundary |
| 1078 | IF accent (word or phrase?) is based on pitch/tone, THEN accent is initial. IF accent is based on duration, THEN accent is final. |
prosodic phonology | implication | accent, tone, pitch, syllable, rhythm |
| 1079 | IF case, and especially genitive, is marked (enclitically) at the end of NPs, THEN word order is mainly SOV, NP Postposition, Genitive Noun, Noun Adjective (Greenberg’s type 24). | inflection, syntax | implication | case, enclitic, order, adposition, attributive, adjective, noun |
| 1080 | Aspiration occurs most frequently after voiceless stops. | phonology | unconditional | aspiration, stop, voice |
| 1081 | IF there are voiced stops with “murmured” aspiration, THEN there are most likely normal voiced aspirates. | phonology | implication | aspiration, stop, voice |
| 1082 | In languages with distinctive aspiration, when aspiration is phonemic, it is often more marked than when it is merely allophonic. | phonology | implication | aspiration, stop |
| 1083 | Aspiration tends to be stronger in initial and/or pre-tonic position antevocalically. | phonology | implication | aspiration, stop |
| 1084 | Duration of aspiration varies according to place of articulation: k > t > p. | phonology | implicational hierarchy | aspiration, place of articulation |
| 1085 | Where contrastive aspiration is neutralized before liquids and nasals, the occurring phone is not aspirated or if released not to the same degree of phonemic aspiration. | phonology | implication | aspiration, liquid, nasal |
| 1086 | If pronominal reference can reach into certain anaphoric islands, THEN also outside. | syntax | implication | anaphoric island, pronominal reference |
| 1087 | IF there is agreement with full noun phrases, THEN very likely there is agreement with pronouns. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, noun, pronoun |
| 1088 | IF there is not a full six-position stop paradigm (/p, t, k, b, d, g/), THEN the gaps are most likely to occur at /g/, then /p/, followed by /d/ and finally /b/. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | stop, paradigm |
| 1089 | IF there is a voicing contrast in stops, THEN /t/ and /k/ are present. | phonology | implication | stop, voice |
| 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 |
| 1092 | IF a nasal system has more than two place of articulation contrasts, THEN it will probably have a palatal or velar nasal, or both. | phonology | implication | nasal, consonant, palatal, velar |
| 1093 | Nearly all languages have contrasting labial and dental nasals. | phonology | unconditional | nasal, consonant, labial, dental |
| 1094 | IF there are any place of articulation contrasts in a nasal stop system, THEN there are at least as many place of articulation contrasts in the oral stop system. | phonology | implication | nasal, oral, stop |
| 1095 | IF there are n stop and affricate positions, THEN there will not be more than n nasal positions. | phonology | implication | nasal, oral, stop, affricate |
| 1096 | Nasal stop systems always have voiced members. | phonology | unconditional | nasal, stop |
| 1097 | IF there is a contrast in glottal feature, length, or other secondary articulation, THEN that feature is also contrastive in the oral stop system (but not necessarily the fricative system). | phonology | implication | glottal, oral, stop |
| 1098 | Nasal consonants tend to share place of articulation properties with stop systems, and glottal features, syllabicity, and accent bearing with liquids. | phonology | unconditional | nasal, consonant, stop, liquid |
| 1099 | IF there are mono-valent resultatives formed from bi-valent verbs , THEN there must be bi-valent resultatives formed from tri-valent verbs. | inflection, syntax | implication | resultative, valence |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 1102 | IF there are no consonant clusters, THEN the position of minimum contrast is word-final. | phonology | implication | consonant cluster |
| 1103 | IF there are nasal vowels, THEN there are at least three, one of which is always a low vowel [ã]. | phonology | implication | nasal, vowel |
| 1104 | Regardless of alignment, the ‘antecedent’, i. e. the controller, of a reflexive is A (or S, where it is extended to intransitive). | syntax | unconditional | reflexive, subject, agent, controller |
| 1105 | IF alignment is ergative for (some) syntactic purposes, THEN it will be ergative for (some) morphological purposes. |
morphology, syntax | implication | alignment, ergative |
| 1106 | All human languages classify actions into two basic types: those involving one obligatory participant, which are described by intransitive clauses, and those involving two or more obligatory participants, which are dealt with by transitive clauses. | syntax | unconditional | intransitive clause, transitive, participant |
| 1107 | Whenever there is an alignment split between bound and free pronouns, bound (i.e. agreement) forms are more likely to align accusatively, while case marking on free forms is more likely to align ergatively. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | agreement, alignment, split, case, ergative, accusative |
| 1108 | If any case has zero realization, or a zero allomorph, it will be absolutive or nominative. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | case, nominative, allomorphy, zero |
| 1109 | The absolute or nominative form of a noun will be used in citation. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | nominative case, absolutive case, semantics |
| 1110 | IF there is Locative Possessive, THEN there is deranking of simultaneous sequences. | inflection, syntax | implication | possessive, deranking |
| 1111 | IF there is a Topic Possessive, THEN there is backgrounding of simultaneous sequences. | syntax | implication | possessive, backgrounding |