Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
827 entries · page 5 of 17
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 673 | IF tags are binary choice, THEN they are sentence final. IF tags are multiple choice, THEN they are sentence initial. |
syntax | implication | order, interrogative sentence, tag question |
| 674 | IF lexical items are more stable than other items in one language family, THEN these items are among the more stable items in another language family. | lexicon | implication | word |
| 675 | see Graphics | morphology, syntax, prosodic phonology | mutual implication | order, noun, adjective, attributive, verb, object, topic, comment, preposition, postposition dependent-marking, analytic, synthetic morphosyntax, word accent, compound accent, phrase accent, syllable, length, vocalism, timing, sterss, vowel inventory, noun class, gender, article |
| 677 | IF the order is VSO and the relative clause is postnominal, THEN the relative clause contains either initial relative particle or pronouns or a special marker on the main verb of the clause. | syntax | implication | relative clause, order, postnominal, personal pronoun, relative particle, verbal affix |
| 678 | IF relative clauses are prenominal, THEN they very rarely retain a personal pronoun in the position of the relativized NP. |
syntax | implication | relative clause, order, personal pronoun |
| 682 | IF there is double negation, THEN negation precedes and follows the verb. | syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | double negation, order, negation |
| 684 | The main principles for the position of negatives: (a) they tend not to be separated from the verb by the subject or the object, (b) they tend not to interrupt the verb+object unit (Negative-Plus-VO Principle), and (c) they tend to precede the verb (Negative-Before-Verb-Principle). |
syntax | unconditional | negation, order |
| 685 | IF negation is morphological, THEN a. portmanteau realization of Neg; b. prosodic unity of Neg and verb (viz. if they "share" one word stress); c. placement of Neg close to the root of the verb (i.e. between the root and other inflectional morphemes); d. morphophonemic alternation in the Negation morpheme. |
morphology, prosodic phonology | implication | negation, prosodic phrasing, stress, portmanteau, morpheme, order, alternation |
| 686 | IF negation is syntactic, THEN a. moveability of Negation; b. prosodic independence (e.g. the Negation morpheme carries a stress of its own); c. in written language: orthographic separation; d. the Negation morpheme by itself carries inflectional affixes. |
syntax, prosodic phonology | implication | negation, prosodic phrasing, stress, inflection |
| 687 | IF there is morphological (suffixal) negation, THEN word order is verb-final or free. | inflection, syntax | implication | order, verb-initial, free, negation, affix-order, suffix |
| 689 | IF [w] becomes a fricative or determines the place of articulation of adjacent fricatives, THEN it shows itself primarily as a labial. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | fricative, labial, place of articulation |
| 691 | IF bound morphology is exclusively or predominantly prefixing, THEN symmetrical reduplicative compounds (provided such complex forms exist) will be overwhelmingly alliterative rather than rhyming or ablauting. | morphology, syntax | implication | compounds, affix, prefix, alliteration, rhyme, rhythm, iambic |
| 703 | IF there are more than eight vowels, THEN /o/ will be among them. | phonology | implication | vowel |
| 704 | The base number tends to be put before the unit, and in general a higher number before a lower, when they are conjoined. | word formation | unconditional | numeral |
| 708 | There is a tendency for high and low short vowels to be more central than the corresponding long vowels. | phonology | unconditional | vowel, high, low, short, central, long |
| 710 | When a nasal vowel system is smaller than the corresponding basic vowel system, it is most often a mid vowel that is missing from the nasal system. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | vowel, nasal, mid |
| 711 | IF morphology is agglutinative, THEN (stress) accent will be demarcating, falling on word edges (either on initial or final syllables), rather than be free and centralizing, and there consequently will not be much phonological reduction of initial or final syllables. |
phonology, morphology | implication | agglutination, accent, reduction |
| 712 | Marked tones tend to be high rather than low. | phonology | unconditional | tone, markedness |
| 715 | IF there is no opposition of front and back fricatives, THEN the s-sound is not sharply differentiated from an ∫-articulation. | phonology | implication | front, back, fricative |
| 719 | More frequently, when tone is privative, high tone is marked relative to low tone, rather than the other way round. | phonology | unconditional | tone, level tone, high, low, markedness |
| 720 | Among CENTRAL and EXTREME tones, CENTRAL are usually unmarked and EXTREME marked. | phonology | unconditional | tone, central, extreme, markedness |
| 724 | IF there are contour tones, THEN there are level tones. | phonology | implication | tone, contour tone, level tone |
| 726 | IF non-tonal phonological properties are assigned opposite values to an adjacent occurrence of that property within a morpheme, then the assignment of tones (provided the language is tonal) will also be governed by rules of polarity. | phonology | implication | tone, morpheme |
| 728 | Laterals [liquids] tend to occur in the neighborhood of consonants whereas nonlaterals tend to occur in the neighborhood of vowels. | phonology | unconditional | liquid, lateral, consonant, vowel |
| 741 | Hierarchy of Property Concepts: Human Propensity > Physical Property > Dimension / Colour > Value / Age / Form > Material / Gender When languages encode these types of property concepts by different word classes, wherever the cut-off point, IF a concept type is encoded nominally, THEN all concept types lower on the hierarchy are also encoded nominally; and IF a concept type is encoded verbally, THEN all concept types higher on the hierarchy are also encoded verbally; IF any concept types are encoded through a distinct word class of adjectives, THEN this will include those from the middle of the hierarchy. |
inflection, syntax, semantics | implicational hierarchy | word class, verb, noun, adjective, property concepts |
| 744 | IF there is nominal-locational switching for adjectives, THEN the nominal option will encode the more time-stable reading. | inflection, syntax, semantics | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | word class, time stability, adjective, noun, locational |
| 756 | A contrast between five basic vowel qualities is the norm for a human language, and in general the most common systems are those with close to this number of basic vowels. | phonology | unconditional | vowel |
| 757 | IF an obstruent is injective, THEN it will most likely be bilabial. | phonology | implication | consonant, injective, obstruent, bilabial |
| 758 | Preferences regarding point of articulation for glottalic obstruents are as follows: injectives tend to have front articulation, ejectives back articulation. | phonology | unconditional | injective, ejective, glottalic, obstruent |
| 761 | The injective corresponding to a noninjective dental is often retracted to the alveolar or alveopalatal position and is consistently apical, often with accompanying retroflexion. | phonology | unconditional | consonant, injective, noninjective, dental, alveolar, alveopalatal, apical, retroflexion |
| 763 | Palatal noninjective stops have a strong tendency to be replaced by alveopalatal affricates. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | palatal, injective, stop, alveopalatal, affricate, noninjective |
| 764 | IF there are glottalic consonants in positions other than syllable-initial, THEN they will also occur syllable-initially. | phonology | implication | syllable, initial, glottalic, consonant |
| 768 | When ... the injective in the dental or alveolar position has become retracted and/or retroflexed, there is a tendency for its glottalic feature to be lost since it has become redundant. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | injective, glottalic, dental, alveolar, retracted, retroflexed |
| 769 | There is at least one primary fricative. | phonology | unconditional | primary, fricative |
| 770 | IF there is only one primary fricative, THEN its primary allophone is most likely to be /s/. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | fricative, sibilant |
| 771 | IF there are only two primary fricatives, THEN the second one is most likely to be /f/. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | fricative |
| 772 | The number of voiceless primary fricatives is highly likely to be greater than the number of voiced ones. | phonology | implication | fricative, voice |
| 773 | IF there is a voiced primary fricative, THEN there is also the corresponding unvoiced primary fricative. | phonology | implication | fricative, voice |
| 774 | The preferred number of primary fricatives in a given language is two. | phonology | unconditional | fricative |
| 775 | The number of primary fricatives is very unlikely to be greater than the number of stops and affricates together. | phonology | implication | fricative, stop, affricate |
| 778 | Every language must have at least one Primary Nasal Consonant in its inventory. | phonology | unconditional | nasal, consonant |
| 779 | IF there is an /h/, THEN there will most likely also be a primary fricative. | phonology | implication | fricative |
| 780 | There are at least three primary oral stops. | phonology | unconditional | consonant, oral, stop |
| 781 | IF there are only three primary oral stops, THEN their primary allophones are most likely to be /p t k/. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | consonant, oral, stop, allophone |
| 782 | IF there is an affricated stop, THEN there is most likely to be at least three plain stops. | phonology | implication | affricate, stop |
| 783 | IF there is only one primary affricated stop, THEN the primary allophone is most likely to be /t∫/. | phonology | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | affricate, allophone |
| 785 | IF there is a voiced primary oral stop, THEN its the voiceless equivalent is highly likely to be present too. | phonology | implication | consonant, oral, stop, voice |
| 787 | The preferred number of primary oral stops in a given language is between four and eight. | phonology | unconditional | consonant, oral, stop |
| 788 | IF there are secondary oral stops, THEN there are most likely primary ones as well. | phonology | implication | consonant, oral, stop |
| 789 | The number of secondary oral stops is not likely to be greater than that of primary oral stops. | phonology | implication | oral, stop, secondary, primary |