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 38 of 41
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1867 | IF there is a acute/grave opposition of compact nasal consonants, THEN there is an identical opposition of compact oral stops. | phonology | implication | consonant, nasal, oral, compact, acute, grave |
| 1868 | IF reduplication is used for grammatical purposes in any other word class, THEN it is also used (for whatever purpose: gradation, superlative, intensification, distributivity, diminution, ...) for adjectives or adjective-derived nouns [perhaps rather: property words]. |
word formation | implication | reduplication, word class, adjective |
| 1869 | There is a "tone of voice" appropriate for talking to young children: (i) overall higher pitch and/or exaggerated intonation contours; (ii) slower speech tempo. |
phonology, pragmatics | unconditional | baby talk, pitch, intonation, tempo |
| 1870 | Baby talk has shorter sentences, fewer subordinate clauses, fewer grammatical relations, more repetitions than normal adult-to-adult speech, often omits inflections and function words, and the copula. | inflection, syntax, discourse | unconditional | baby talk, complexity, subordination, copula |
| 1871 | Every speech community seems to have a small lexicon of words used primarily with young children. The words of this special lexicon (i) fall into certain semantic areas (namely body parts, body functions, kin terms, food, animals, infant games), (ii) they include greater use of hypocoristic affixes, (iii) they are used more freely in different word class functions than the normal adult lexicon (esp. as parts of compound verbs with general purpose auxiliaries), and (iv) they tend to be phonologically simplified (simple canonical forms, esp. CVCV; substitution of marked sounds by less marked ones; special sounds; consonant and vowel harmony; reduplication). | phonology, syntax | unconditional | baby talk, hypocoristic, word class, complexity, markedness, consonant harmony, vowel harmony, reduplication |
| 1872 | Baby talk is also characterized by: high percentage of questions; frequent use of tags; here-and-now semantics; high semantic continuity between pairs of utterances; striking shifts in pronoun use (especially in alternatives for YOU). |
discourse | unconditional | baby talk |
| 1873 | The most striking – and apparently universal – variability is in what can be called "degree of babyishness". Changes in the degree of babyishness may reflect the age of the addressee, thenature of the situation, the speaker’s estimate of the linguistics abilities of the child, the strength of the affetive bound between the interactants, and so on. | discourse | unconditional | baby talk |
| 1874 | Core items of the baby talk register tend to persist for long periods of time. | lexicon | unconditional | baby talk |
| 1875 | Like other registers, baby talk or selected features of it may be extended to secondary uses, e.g. (i) to suggest the speech of children, (ii) in talking to pets, (iii) in coaxing other people or even objects to behave the way the speaker wants, (iv) in calling arttention to someone's childishnesss, (v) in adult intimate interaction such as talk between lovers. | discourse | unconditional | baby talk |
| 1876 | IF there is a 1st person exclusive dual, THEN there is also a 1st person inclusive dual. | morphology | implication | inclusive, exclusive, person, 1, number, dual |
| 1877 | Pronouns for 1st person inclusive plural may consist of 1st person plus 2nd person [singular] forms, but pronouns for 1st person inclusive dual may not. |
inflection | unconditional | inclusive, person, 1, 2, number, dual, plural |
| 1878 | In the coding of subordination vis-a-vis that of non-subordinate clauses: (a) If there is elimination of Aspect, then there is elimination of Tense and Mood. (b) If there is elimination of agreement, then there is elimination of Tense, Aspect, or Mood. (c) If there is case/adposition marking, then there is elimination of Tense, Aspect, or Mood. (d) If there is possessor/oblique coding, the there is elimination of Tense, Aspect, Mood or Agreement. |
syntax, inflection | implication | clause combining, subordination, tense, aspect, mood, agreement, case, adposition, possessor, oblique |
| 1879 | In the coding of subordination vis-a-vis that of non-subordinate clauses: (a) Case/adposition & agreement eliminated >> case/adposition marking & agreement maintained. (b) Arguments omitted & tense/aspect/mood eliminated >> arguments omitted & tense/aspect/mood maintained. (c) Arguments maintained & tense/aspect/mood eliminated >> arguments omitted & agreement maintained. (d) Arguments maintained & agreement maintained >> arguments omitted & agreement maintained. (where ‘>>’ means ‘is crosslinguistically more frequent than’) |
syntax, inflection | unconditional | clause combining, subordination, tense, aspect, mood, agreement, case, adposition |
| 1880 | Frequency hierarchy for the coding of subordination vis-a-vis that of non-subordinate clauses: elimination of tense/aspect/mood >> elimination of agreement distinctions, omission of verb arguments >> case/adposition marking on the verb >> coding of verb arguments as possessor or obliques. |
inflection, syntax | implicational hierarchy | clause combining, subordination, tense, aspect, mood, agreement, case, adposition, possessor, oblique |
| 1881 | In the coding of subordination vis-a-vis that of non-subordinate clauses, IF there is loss of subject-verb agreement and non-direct (but possessive/oblique) case marking of the subordinate subject, THEN there is loss of tense/aspect/mood, but not vice versa |
syntax, inflection | implication | clause combining, subordination, tense, aspect, mood, agreement, case, adposition, possessor, oblique |
| 1882 | Polarity [in gender/number systems] is never complete (i.e., polarity is never the sole configuration of gender/number markers under all circumstances in a given language). | inflection, syntax | unconditional | gender, number, polarity |
| 1883 | IF a verbal form inflects for tense-aspect-modality (TAM) like a predicated verb, THEN it will take subject and object dependents like a predicated verb. IF a verbal form takes a subject dependent like a predicated verb, THEN it will take an object dependent like a predicated verb. |
inflection, syntax | implication | deverbalization hierarchy, predicated verb, tense, aspect, mood, sunject, object |
| 1884 | IF there is an expletive subject, THEN there is some definite argument elsewhere in the clause. | syntax | implication | clause, expletive subject, definite argument |
| 1885 | When there are different tense categories and there is a split between 1st versus 2nd/3rd person in one of these categories, IF such a split occurs in tenses other than future, THEN it will also occur in the future. | inflection, syntax | implication | person, 1, 2, 3, split, tense, future, present, past |
| 1886 | IF there is a split between 1st versus 2nd/3rd person in the past, THEN there is such a split this split in the future too. | inflection, syntax | implication | person, 1, 2, 3, split, tense, future, past |
| 1887 | IF there is a split between 1st versus 2nd/3rd person marking in modal categories, THEN it is more likely to occur in: (a) optative than in indicative; (b) irrealis than realis; (c) volitional than involitional modality . |
inflection, syntax | implication | person, 1, 2, 3, split, mood, optative, indicative, irrealis, relais, volitional, involitional |
| 1888 | IF there is a split between 1st and 2nd person versus 3rd person marking, THEN it is more likely with a verb marked for direct or sensory evidence than verbs marked for indirect evidence, e.g. the widespread hearsay category. | inflection, syntax | implication | person, 1, 2, 3, split, evidentiality |
| 1889 | IF there is a split between 1st and 2nd person versus 3rd person marking, THEN this split is more likely with the verbal category assertive than with the category non-assertive. | inflection, syntax | implication | person, 1, 2, 3, split, assertive |
| 1890 | IF Object of Comparison can be clefted, THEN Genitive NP can be clefted as well. IF Genitive NP can be clefted, THEN Oblique NP can be clefted as well. IF Oblique NP can be clefted, THEN Indirect Object can be clefted as well. IF Indirect Object can be clefted, THEN Direct Object can be clefted as well. IF Direct Object can be clefted, THEN Subject can be clefted as well. |
syntax | implicational hierarchy | cleft, subject, direct object, indirect, oblique, attributive, comparison |
| 1891 | The Cleftability Hierarchy: Subject > Direct Object > Indirect Object > Oblique NP > Genitive NP > Object of Comparison. Syntactic positions on the top of the cleftability hierarchy have more access to the deletion strategy and/or less access to the pronoun retention strategy. |
syntax | implicational hierarchy | cleft, pronoun deletion, retention |
| 1892 | The Cleftability Hierarchy: Subject > Direct Object > Indirect Object > Oblique NP > Genitive NP > Object of Comparison. Syntactic positions on the top of the hierarchy can be clefted in a larger variety of sentences, or in more complex constructions than those on the bottom of the hierarchy. |
syntax | implicational hierarchy | cleft, complexity |
| 1893 | IF there is an opposition of voice vs. voiceless and aspirate vs. non-aspirate, THEN there is a phoneme /h/. | phonology | implication | aspirate, voice, /h/ |
| 1894 | IF there is an opposition of dental and retroflex consonants, THEN there is an opposition of pharyngealized and non-pharyngealized dentals. | phonology | implication | pharyngeal, dental, retroflex |
| 1895 | IF anything grammatical is borrowed, THEN there is a borrowed lexical item from the same source language. | all-encompassing | implication | language contact, borrowing |
| 1896 | IF there are borrowed bound morphemes, such as clitics, affixes and parts of compound stems, THEN there are borrowed free forms which these bound morphemes are proper parts of. IF there are borrowed phonetic segments or features, THEN there are borrowed accentuated lexemes which these segments or features are proper parts of. |
morphology | implication | language contact, borrowing, accent, affix, clitic |
| 1897 | IF there is a borrowed non-noun, THEN there is a borrowed noun. | lexicon | implication | language contact, borrowing, word class |
| 1898 | A lexical item whose meaning is verbal can never be included in the set of borrowed properties. | lexicon | unconditional | language contact, borrowing, word class, verb |
| 1899 | IF there ais a borrowed inflectional affix, THEN there is a borrowed derivational affix. | morphology | implication | language contact, borrowing, affix |
| 1900 | When function words are borrowed (especially adpositions and conjunctions), their ordering relative to their co-constituents will be the same as in the donor language. |
syntax | unconditional | language contact, borrowing, order, adposition, conjunction |
| 1901 | When at least some words of a particular word class are uninflected, words of that some word class that are borrowed must include ones which are equally uninflected. |
inflection | unconditional | language contact, borrowing |
| 1902 | IF respect or social distance is distinguished for speaker (1st person) or other (3rd person) pronouns, THEN it is also distinguished for addressee (2nd person) pronouns. | inflection, syntax, discourse | implication | speaker, addressee, social distance, respect, honorific |
| 1903 | Processess of variation of the type of pronoun used in reference for showing degrees of respect or social distance are more common in address than in reference to the speaker or to someone other than the speaker or addressee. | inflection, syntax, discourse | implication | pronoun, personal pronoun, speaker, addressee, non-locutor, social distance, respect, personal pronoun, honorific |
| 1904 | IF respect or social distance is distinguished for plural pronouns, THEN it is also distinguished for singular pronouns. |
inflection, syntax, discourse | implication | pronoun, personal pronoun, social distance, respect, honorific, number, singular, plural |
| 1905 | A pronominal form used for showing greater respect or social distance is never eliminated from the system of reference in favour of one for showing less respect or social distance. | inflection, syntax, discourse | unconditional | pronoun, personal pronoun, social distance, respect, honorific |
| 1906 | IF there are prenasalized voiceless consonants only, THEN voicing is non-contrastive within the consonant system. OR: IF voicing is contrastive in the consonant system, THEN some prenasalized voiced stops will be present. |
phonology | implication | voice, prenasalized stop |
| 1907 | IF a language is pivotless, THEN there will be isolating morphology and free word order. | inflection, syntax | implication | semantic role, information flow, deixis, isolating, free word order, NP encoding |
| 1908 | IF a language is of the pure or the mixed separatist type of relational clause structuring, THEN there will be agglutinative morphology and free word order. | inflection, syntax | implication | semantic role, information flow, deixis, agglutination, free word order |
| 1909 | IF a language is of the cumulative mixed type, THEN there will be fusional morphology or rigid word order. | inflection, syntax | implication | semantic role, information flow, deixis, fusional, rigid word order, NP encoding |
| 1910 | IF there are syntactic relations, THEN there are diathesis changes (voices). IF there are no syntactic relations, THEN there are no voices. |
inflection, syntax | implication | syntactic relation, voice, diathesis |
| 1911 | When comitative and instrumental are kept formally distinct and if one of the two forms part of the mode of expression of predicative possession, there is a 3:1 probability that it is the comitative that belongs to this pattern. | inflection, sysntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | case, comitative, instrumental, predicative possession |
| 1912 | When the marker for instrumental forms part of the mode of expression of predicative possession, there is a 50% probability that comitative and instrumental are not distinguished by formal means. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | case, comitative, instrumental, predicative possession |
| 1913 | IF the grammatical expression of predicative possession requires the use of the marker of either comitative or instrumental, THEN in four out of five cases the comitative is involved. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, comitative, instrumental, predicative possession |
| 1914 | IF the marker of predicative possession is allowed to be part of the range of functions covered by the marker of instrumental, THEN at least one additional function that is not equivalent to the comitative is involved in the combination. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, comitative, instrumental, predicative possession |
| 1915 | IF there are modal particles, THEN there are modal adverbials. | lexicon | implication | modal particles, modal adverbials |
| 1916 | IF there is an optative mood, THEN there is subjunctive or an imperative mood | inflection, syntax | implication | mood, optative, subjunctive, imperative |