Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
20 entries
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | IF adpositions precede their NPs (i. e. they are prepositions), THEN head nouns almost always precede their attributive nouns (genitives). | syntax | implication | order, preposition, attributive, genitive |
| 4 | IF adpositions follow their NPs (i.e. they are postpositions), THEN head nouns almost always follow their attributive nouns (genitives). | syntax | implication | order, postposition, attributive, genitive |
| 7 | IF morphemes of both number and case are present and both follow or both precede the noun base, THEN the exponent of number almost always comes between the noun base and the exponent of case. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | affix-order, case, number |
| 10 | IF in apposition the common noun usually precedes the proper noun, THEN, with much better than chance frequency, the attributive noun precedes its head noun. DELETE: is part of #9 |
syntax | implication | order, apposition, attributive, genitive |
| 16 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme, THEN the segmental marker of internal case is closer to the stem of the attributive nominal than is the segmental marker of external case. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | case, attribution, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, affix-order |
| 21 | IF the internal case involved in Suffixaufnahme is a case other than that of the possessor, THEN the case of the possessor (typically genitive) is almost always also involved in Suffixaufnahme. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, attribution, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, possessive, genitive |
| 88 | IF the demonstrative follows the noun, THEN the relative clause follows the noun. OR, BY CONTRAPOSITION: IF the relative clause precedes the noun, THEN the demonstrative precedes the noun. |
syntax | implication | order, relative clause, demonstrative, noun |
| 93 | IF there is a gender distinction in the 2nd person singular of pronouns, THEN the 3rd person singular is likelier to have than to lack a gender distinction. | inflection | implication | pronoun, gender, number, singular, person, 2, 3 |
| 134 | IF there is ergative alignment, THEN action nominalizations are likely to be of the SENT or SENT-POSS types and unlikely to be of the POSS-ACC or NOMN types. | inflection, syntax | implication | nominalization, alignment, ergative-absolutive, agent, case, genitive |
| 153 | IF nouns share inflectional properties with adjectives, THEN they also share these properties with determiners. | inflection | implication | word class, noun, adjective, determiner |
| 312 | IF there is a noun form for use as as subject of intransitive verbs of state, THEN this form will also be used for intransitive verbs of action. | inflection, syntax | implication | subject, intransitivity, verb, active, stative |
| 498 | IF interrogative sentences are formed from declarative sentences by inversion so that verb precedes subject, THEN the question word or phrase is normally initial. IF such inversion occurs in yes-no questions, THEN it also occurs in information questions. |
syntax | implication | order, sentence type, interrogative, subject-verb inversion |
| 525 | In more than one language, and possibly in all, preposed demonstratives are peripheral to tautolateral numerals and adjectives; postposed demonstratives are most frequently so. | syntax | unconditional | order, demonstrative, numeral, adjective, noun |
| 526 | IF the adnominal demonstrative and the definite article occur on the same side of the head noun, THEN the demonstrative is consistently more peripheral than the article. | syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | adnominal demonstrative, definite article, noun, order |
| 631 | Distributive-share quantifier words are formed from their ordinary counterparts by morphological process. | morphology | unconditional | quantifier, distributive |
| 635 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme, THEN nominal inflection will be agglutinative. | syntax, inflection | implication | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, agglutination, noun |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 2031 | IF there are word-initial geminates, THEN there are also medial geminates. | phonology | implication | consonant, geminate, word |