Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1451: Original In all languages, if there is a certain form to denote the metaperson ‘hearer’ in the non-singular, it cannot denote the metaperson…

Universal 1467: Original In an overwhelming majority of languages, there is no special form to denote the metaperson ‘hearer(s) + non-participant(s)’. Standardized In an overwhelming…

Universal 1483: Original If in a language there is a pronominal form denoting the dual of the metapersons ‘hearer’, ‘hearer + non-participant’ and/or ‘non-participant’, then…

Universal 1499: Original Languages with serial verb constructions tend to have VO ordering with verb serialization andone object per verb (but some permit two objects);…

Universal 1515: OS & transitive verbs show agreement ⇒ s-V-o Original If transitive verbs in subject-final languages present agreement at all, then they have a…

Universal 1531: verb-initial ⇒ prefixes Original Verb-initial languages evidence significant prefixing, though normally there is some suffixing as well. There is a possibility of ambi-fixing…

Universal 1547: Original In verb-initial languages, the presence of definite articles distinct from demonstratives is much more common than in verb-final languages. Standardized IF word…

Universal 1563: Original In all languages with over 60% order overall, VS word order is statistically correlated with temporally sequenced clauses. In languages with less…

Universal 1579: Original If there are causative affixes in a language which serve to form causative verbs from transitives, then this language also has causative…

Universal 1595: Original If some element is a member of the set AUX*, there is reasonable likehood that it will be bound to some adjacent…