Category: Universals Archive

Universal 698: Original Standardized IF there are more than six vowels, THEN /e, o/ or /i, E/ will be among them. (The types /i, E/…

Universal 714: Original A language may contrast up to five levels of tone, but no more. Standardized There will be no more than five phonological…

Universal 730: Original The Agreement Universal:If a language has person agreement in intransitive main clauses, this agreement will at least be used in sentences with…

Universal 746: Tense ⇒ Past/Non-Past Original The Universal of Tense-Aspect Organization:If a language encodes a tense opposition in its verbal system, this opposition will hold…

Universal 762: Original Injectives tend not to cluster with plain consonants. Standardized Injectives tend not to cluster with plain consonants. Keywords injective, consonant cluster Domain…

Universal 778: Original If a language has only three primary oral stops, their primary allophones are most likely to be /p t k/. Standardized IF…

Universal 794: Original If a language has only one place of articulation for a given type of consonant it is most likely to be the…

Universal 810: stress for semantic contrast ⇒ non-monosyllabic Original Stress can be used for semantic contrasts only in non-monosyllabic languages. Standardized IF stress is used…

Universal 826: correlatives ⇒ ¬ RelN Original If a language has correlative relative constructions, it does not have prenominal ad-relative* clauses. Standardized IF there are…

Universal 842: Original There are no initial or final clusters in which all obstruent combinations are heterogeneous in regard to voicing. Standardized There are no…