Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
297 entries · page 3 of 6
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 765 | Injectives tend not to cluster with plain consonants. | phonology | unconditional | injective, consonant cluster |
| 766 | A voiced injective, like an ordinary breathy or voiced consonant, may raise tone or have no effect at all, but may not lower tone. | phonology | unconditional | consonant, injective, voice, tone |
| 769 | There is at least one primary fricative. | phonology | unconditional | primary, fricative |
| 774 | The preferred number of primary fricatives in a given language is two. | phonology | unconditional | fricative |
| 778 | Every language must have at least one Primary Nasal Consonant in its inventory. | phonology | unconditional | nasal, consonant |
| 780 | There are at least three primary oral stops. | phonology | unconditional | consonant, oral, stop |
| 787 | The preferred number of primary oral stops in a given language is between four and eight. | phonology | unconditional | consonant, oral, stop |
| 794 | The preferred number of primary nasal consonants in a language is between two and four. | phonology | unconditional | nasal, consonant |
| 800 | The preferred set of consonants in a given language is: /p, t, k, t∫, f, s, m, n/. | phonology | unconditional | consonant |
| 816 | Sibilants of different types tend not to cluster, or only across morpheme boundaries. | phonology, morphology | unconditional | consonant cluster, final, sibilant, morpheme boundary |
| 845 | There are no initial or final clusters in which all obstruent combinations are heterogeneous in regard to voicing. | phonology | unconditional | consonant cluster, obstruent, heterogeneous, voice |
| 857 | In final clusters, an voiced stop can only be immediately followed by its counterpart if there is a morpheme boundary between them. | phonology | unconditional | consonant cluster, final, stop, voice |
| 859 | A voiced and glottalized consonant cannot be combined in either initial or final clusters. | phonology | unconditional | consonant cluster, initial, final, voice, glottalized |
| 861 | In final systems, clusters with two members never consist of a hushing followed by a hissing sibilant. | phonology | unconditional | consonant cluster, final, sibilant, hushing, hissing |
| 875 | In initial and final clusters, an unvoiced sonant is never immediately preceded or followed by another unvoiced sonant. | phonology | unconditional | consonant cluster, final, initial, voice, sonant |
| 886 | All languages have a high or a lower high front vowel. | phonology | unconditional | high, low, front, vowel |
| 908 | Allomorphy cannot be conditioned across (grammatical) word boundaries. | morphology | unconditional | allomorphy |
| 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 |
| 941 | Low vowels tend to be longer than high vowels, all things being equal. | phonology | unconditional | vowel, low, high, length |
| 947 | When nasal and oral vowels merge unconditionally, the result is always an oral vowel. | phonology | unconditional | oral, vowel, nasal |
| 951 | When there is phonemic stress, the number of phonemic contrasts in stressed syllables will be greater than or equal to the number of phonemic contrasts in unstressed syllables. | phonology | unconditional | stress, phoneme, syllable |
| 959 | The presence of C1C2- makes -C2C1 as likely as or more likely than -C1C2. | phonology | unconditional | phonotactics, consonant cluster |
| 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 |
| 1004 | Vowel ablaut is the commonest iconic means (especially for expressing distance). | phonology, semantics | unconditional | iconicity, ablaut |
| 1005 | Front vowels predominantly correspond to diminutive and associated categories. | phonology, semantics | unconditional | iconicity |
| 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 |
| 1033 | It is these three features – stress, tone and length (with the possible addition of glottalization) – which function accentually and no others. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, tone, length, accent, glottalization |
| 1034 | Only the intense pole – loud stress, high pitch and length – ever has the accentual property. There is no language in which there is one and just one weakest stress or one lowest pitch (or shortest segment) in a phonological word. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, pitch, length, accent |
| 1036 | Morphemically simple phonological words never have more than one main stress. | phonology, morphology | unconditional | stress, accent |
| 1038 | Morphemically simple words must have one main stress. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, accent |
| 1039 | When stress is phonologically predictable and limited to certain syllables (i.e., does not always fall on the same syllable), the potentially stressable syllables form a sequence without gaps and are reckoned either initially forward or from the ultima backwards, with the relevant syllables being identified in terms of only three properties: (i) heaviness (vowel length and/or a complex nucleus of unlike vowels (diphthong) and/or syllable-final consonant(s), as opposed to lightness, (ii) open or peripheral vowel quality, as opposed to central vowel, or (iii) high tone, as opposed to low tone. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, syllable, accent, tone, weight, vowel quality |
| 1043 | Root accent is systematically favoured over inflectional accent. | phonology, morphology | unconditional | root, affix, accent |
| 1044 | Concerning the relation of word prosody to phrase prosody: Word accent of the final syllable is lost unless phrase final, whereas internal word accent is retained. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | prosody, word, accent |
| 1053 | We would expect that a system which stresses the initial syllable as the elsewhere case (i.e., if words lack a long vowel, full vowel, or heavy syllable that would attract stress) would be more common than a system which places stress on the final syllable in the elsewhere case, regardless of whether stress on strong syllables is determined from the left or from the right. | prosodic phonology | unconditional | stress, syllable |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 1080 | Aspiration occurs most frequently after voiceless stops. | phonology | unconditional | aspiration, stop, voice |
| 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 |
| 1093 | Nearly all languages have contrasting labial and dental nasals. | phonology | unconditional | nasal, consonant, labial, dental |
| 1096 | Nasal stop systems always have voiced members. | phonology | unconditional | nasal, stop |