Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1938: Original I know of no language which has one verb stem to indicate giving to the 1st or 3rd person and a suppletive…

Universal 1954: Original Die Gründe, warum die eine Art der Sprache die alte Sprechweise, die unter der Herrschaft des musikalischen Tons stand, beibehielt, während die…

Universal 1970: Original There are severe limitations on the kinds of synchronic patterns and diachronic restructurings which may occur in existential-copulative-auxiliary systems, and such patterns…

Universal 1986: Original If Ex and Cop are lexically separate, and they are in a suppletive relation with verbs meaning ‘become’ and ‘stay’, then ‘become’…

Universal 2002: Original The Agreement Hierarchy:attributive < predicate < relative pronoun < personal pronoun(i) Possible agreement pattern are constrained as follows: As we move rightwards…

Universal 2018: Original All languages have “emotive” interjections (i.e. interjections expressing cognitively based feelings). Standardized There are “emotive” interjections (i.e. interjections expressing cognitively based feelings).…

Universal 4: Original If the exponent of vocative is a prefix, then this prefix has arisen from 1st person possessor or a 2nd person subject.…

Universal 18: SA multi-level ⇒ SA single-level Original In all languages, if Suffixaufnahme occurs in multi-level possessive constructions, it also occurs in single-level ones. Standardized…

Universal 34: SA ⇒ affix sequences Original If a language has Suffixaufnahme, it also has affix sequences outside the construction. Standardized IF there is Suffixaufnahme,…

Universal 50: Original In agreement of adnominal modifiers with their heads (NP internal agreement), the agreement features may include case but not person. Standardized The…