Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
2,029 entries · page 26 of 41
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1255 | IF consonant gradation plays a role in the grammar, THEN it serves the function to identify nouns. | phonology, syntax | implication | consonant gradation |
| 1256 | Front consonants are less prone to develop in accordance with consonant gradation than back consonants. | phonology | implication | consonant gradation |
| 1257 | Anterior consonants are less likely to participate in consonant gradation than posterior consonants. | phonology | implication | consonant gradation |
| 1258 | Labiovelar stops are less likely to participate in consonant gradation than other stops of the same series. | phonology | implication | consonant gradation |
| 1259 | The less sonorous a vowel (or class of vowels), the more prone it will be to assimilate; and conversely, the more sonorous it is, the more resistant it will be to assimilation. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, sonority |
| 1260 | High vowels tend to assimilate more readily and earlier than low vowels. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony |
| 1261 | IF there is assimilation of low vowels, THEN there is assimilation of high vowels. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, height |
| 1262 | Unstressed vowels are more likely to assimilate than stressed vowels. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, stress |
| 1263 | IF an otherwise harmonizing unstressed vowel becomes stressed due to intonational factors, THEN it can no longer harmonize. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | assimilation, vowel harmony, stress, intonation |
| 1264 | The less the phonetic distance between opposing members of potential vowel grades, the more prone they will be to harmonize. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, vowel grade |
| 1265 | IF there is assimilation of vowels with high tone, THEN there will be assimilation of vowels with low tone. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, tone |
| 1266 | IF there is assimilation of fully voiced vowels, THEN there will be assimilation of partially voiced or voiceless vowels. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, voicing |
| 1267 | IF there is assimilation of vowels with normal duration, THEN there will be assimilation of reduced vowels. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, duration |
| 1268 | IF there is assimilation of tense vowels, THEN there will be assimilation of lax vowels. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, tenseness |
| 1269 | IF there is assimilation of front vowels, THEN there will be assimilation of back vowels. | phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, backness |
| 1270 | IF there is assimilation of unrounded vowels, THEN there will be assimilation of rounded vowels. |
phonology | implication | assimilation, vowel harmony, rounding |
| 1271 | IF basic order is SVO, THEN alignment is not ergative; IF alignment is ergative, THEN basic order is not SVO. |
inflection, syntax | implication | order, ergative language |
| 1272 | Hierarchy of quantifiers: each > every > all > most > many > several > some (+NPPl) > a few (‘>’ means ‘greater tendency toward higher scope’) |
semantics | implicational hierarchy | quantifier, scope |
| 1273 | Hierarchy of grammatical functions for purposes of quantifier scope: topic > deep and surface subject > deep or surface subject > indirect object > prepositional object > direct object (‘>’ means ‘greater tendency toward higher scope’) |
semantics | implicational hierarchy | quantifier, scope |
| 1274 | IF there is one or more distinctions or remoteness in a tense-aspect system, and reference can be made to objective time measures, THEN one of the distinctions will be between ‘more than one day away’ and ‘not more than one day away’. |
inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | tense, aspect, time measures |
| 1275 | IF categories can be used as a ‘perfect of result’ (i.e. to say that something has happened that has a result at the moment of speech), THEN they tend to be nondistinct from hodiernal pasts. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | tense, aspect, past |
| 1276 | IF categories are used like the English pluperfect, THEN they will tend to be nondistinct from remote past. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | tense, aspect, remote past |
| 1277 | IF narrative and non-narrative contexts differ with respect to the marking of temporal distance, THEN it will be the non-narrative contexts that exhibit the largest number of distinctions. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | tense, aspect, context, narrative, temporal distance |
| 1278 | IF an NP in a given nuclear grammatical relation occurs initially in the dominant order of bitransitive clauses, THEN NPs in this relation will also occur initially in the dominant order of unitransitive clauses. | syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | order, bitransitive, unitransitive |
| 1279 | IF the dominant unitransitive order is SVO, THEN the dominant bitransitive order will be either SVDO or SVOD. | syntax | implication | order, bitransitive clause, unitransitive clause |
| 1280 | IF indirect object is unmarked, THEN SVDO. IF indirect object is marked, THEN SVOD. |
syntax | implication | bitransitive clause, unitransitive clause, order, indirect , direct object |
| 1281 | IF the direct object is marked in the unitransitive clause, THEN the indirect object will be marked in the bitransitive clause. | syntax | implication | bitransitive clause, unitransitive clause, indirect, direct object |
| 1282 | IF the direct object is marked in the bitransitive clause, THEN it is also marked in the unitransitive clause. | syntax | implication | bitransitive clause, unitransitive clause, indirect object, direct object |
| 1283 | IF the indirect object is marked in prototypical bitransitive clauses, THEN it is also marked in non-prototypical bitransitive clauses. | syntax | implication | indirect object, bitransitive clause |
| 1284 | IF the direct object is marked when its referent is inanimate, THEN it is also marked when its referent is animate; IF the direct object is marked when its referent is non-human, THEN it is also marked when its referent is human. |
syntax | implication | direct object, animate, inanimate, human, non-human |
| 1285 | IF the direct object is marked when its referent is indefinite, THEN it is also marked when its referent is definite or unique. | syntax | implication | direct object, definite, indefinite |
| 1286 | IF there are n retroflexed consonants, THEN there will be at least n non-retroflexed apical consonants. | phonology | implication | retroflexion, apical, consonant |
| 1287 | 1. TARGETS OF PALATALIZATION a. in terms of place of articulation: IF a less back consonant is palatalized, THEN all more back consonants are also palatalized. (BACK-to-FRONT scale: velar > dental > labial). b. in terms of manner of articulation: IF a less sonorant consonant is palatalized, THEN all more sonorant consonants are also palatalized. (SONORITY scale: sonorant > sibilant > stop / non-strident). 2. TRIGGERS OF PALATALIZATION a. in terms of place of articulation: IF a less high front vowel palatalizes a preceding consonant, THEN all more high vowels also palatalize this consonant. b. in terms of consonantality: IF a nuclear vowel palatalizes a preceding consonant, THEN a corresponding glide also palatalizes this consonant. (e.g., [y] > [i]) |
phonology | implication | palatalization |
| 1288 | IF nasality co-occurs in the neighborhood of a vowel or is inherent in the vowel itself of a given height m, THEN nasality must co-occur also in the neighborhood of or be inherent in a vowel of any lesser degree of height. Instantiations of this general implication: IF a less low vowel is nasalized, THEN any more low vowels are also nasalized. IF a more low vowel is denasalized, THEN any less low vowels are also denasalized. IF a consonant is nasalized preceding a less low vowel, THEN this consonant is also nasalized preceding any more low vowels. IF a consonant is denasalized preceding a more low vowel, THEN this consonant is also denasalized preceding any less low vowels. Upon nasalization, vowels tend to lower rather than to rise. |
phonology | implication | nasalization, denasalization, vowel height |
| 1289 | IF a numeral system has subtraction, THEN it is never expressed by mere sequence of the subtrahend and minuend. | word formation | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | numeral |
| 1290 | The Animated First Principle (AFP): In simple transitive clauses, the NP which is most animate will precede NPs which are less animate. |
syntax | unconditional | order, noun, animacy, transitive clause |
| 1291 | The Verb-Object Bonding Principle (VOB): The object of a transitive verb is more tightly bounded to the verb than is its subject. |
syntax | unconditional | order, boundedness, subject, object, transitive verb |
| 1292 | IF a numeral system has subtraction and/or division, THEN it has addition and multiplication. | word formation | implication | numeral |
| 1293 | IF non-necessity is expressed by an auxiliary, THEN so is impossibility; IF impossibility is expressed by an auxiliary, THEN so is necessity; IF necessity is expressed by an auxiliary, THEN so is possibility. |
syntax, semantics, lexicon | implication | modality, auxiliary |
| 1294 | IF possessed NPs show the definite article, THEN non-possessed NPs show the definite article. | syntax | implication | possessive pronoun, definite article |
| 1295 | IF possessed NPs with a preposed possessor show the definite article, THEN possessed NPs with a postposed possessor show the definite article. | syntax | implication | definite article, order, possessive pronoun |
| 1296 | IF possessed NPs with a kinship term as head noun show the definite article, THEN possessed NPs with a nonkinship term as head noun show the definite article. | syntax | implication | definite article, possessive pronoun, kinship term |
| 1297 | IF there is a possessive resultative, THEN there is a subjective resultative. IF there is a subjective resultative, THEN there is an objective resultative. |
syntax | implication | diathesis, resultative |
| 1298 | IF there is a dative and/or locative resultative, THEN there is an objective resultative. | syntax | implication | diathesis, resultative |
| 1299 | IF there is a bivalent locational resultative, THEN there is a monovalent reversible resultative. IF there is a monovalent reversible resultative, THEN there is an irreversible observable resultative. IF there is an irreversible observable resultative, THEN there is an unobservable resultative. |
syntax | implicational hierarchy | diathesis, resultative |
| 1300 | In languages where both resultatives proper and derived statives have the same form, the probability for a resultative to have stative meaning increases from right to left: unobservable > irreversible observable > monovalent reversible > bivalent locational |
syntax, semantics | implicational hierarchy | diathesis, resultative |
| 1301 | IF an agentive object is forbidden in the passive, THEN it is also forbidden in the resultative. | syntax | implication | diathesis, resultative, passive, agentive object |
| 1302 | IF there are postpositions, THEN indefiniteness affixes on nouns are suffixed. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, postposition, noun, indefinite, affix-order, suffix |
| 1303 | If basic order is SOV, THEN indefiniteness affixes on nouns (if any) are suffixed. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, SOV, noun, indefinite, affix-order, suffix |
| 1304 | IF there are postpositions, THEN nominalizing affixes on nouns are suffixed with considerably greater than chance frequency. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, postposition, noun, nominalization, affix-order, suffix |