Universal 5: SOV & N Gen ⇒ N Adj Original If a language has dominant SOV order and the genitive follows the governing noun, then…
Category: Universals Archive
Universals Archive
Universal 21: SA with non-possessor case ⇒ SA with possessor case Original In almost all languages if the internal case involved in Suffixaufnahme is a…
Universal 37:
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Universal 37: Original If Suffixaufnahme is historically preceded by a different construction, one possibility for that construction is to involve a pronoun-like constituent. This constituent…
Universal 53:
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Universal 53: Original In the construction of possessive attribution, only the possessor may agree in case with the possessum, while only the possessum may agree…
Universal 69: Prep ⇒ (N A ⇒ N G) Original If a language has Prep word order, then if the adjective follows the noun, the…
Universal 85:
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Universal 85: Original The non-null set of agreeing non-subjects of any language includes some or all direct objects; or in other words, if in a…
Universal 101: N Poss ⇒ N A;equivalently: A N ⇒ Poss N Original If the possessive adjective follows the noun, then the descriptive adjective follows…
Universal 117:
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Universal 117: Original In languages with a distinction between active (animate) vs. passive (inanimate) nouns, passive nouns don’t distinguish numbers (SG/PL). Standardized IF nouns are…
Universal 133:
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Universal 133: Original It is relatively unusual for languages (in ANCs) to combine sentential dependent-marking for the S with non-sentential marking for the A or…
Universal 149:
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Universal 149: Original The number of inflectional classes of adjectives is never larger than the number of inflectional classes of nouns. Standardized The number of…