Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1950: Original Partial or complete denasalization of nasal consonants would occur only in languages with oral-nasal vowel contrast. Standardized IF there is partial or…

Universal 1966: Original Every language has at least one set of forms or constructions whose primary function (or one of several major functions) is to…

Universal 1982: Original … from the fact that subordinate clauses precede, it might be predicted that quotations would precede the quoting verb. Also, from the…

Universal 1998: Original An obvious suggestion for a universal here [where gender appears in only one person] would be that if a language has a…

Universal 2014: Original Long-distance reciprocals are not clearly attested in natural languages, to my knowledge. Standardized There are no (clear cases of) long-distance reciprocals. Keywords…

Universal 14: verb agreement with case-less objects ⇒ verb agreement with case-marked objects Original If verbs agree with objects, they are likelier to do so…

Universal 30: Original If a language has Suffixaufnahme, it also has NP-internal attributive constituents outside this construction. Standardized IF there is Suffixaufnahme, THEN there will…

Universal 46: Original When objects are marked differently depending on whether or not they are definite, or on whether or not they are animate/human, it…

Universal 62: Rel N ⇒ Postposition &/v Adj N Original If the relative expression precedes the noun either as the only construction or as an…

Universal 78: Original Only languages in which (a) passivization involves complete loss of the semantic case-coding properties of the object and an assumption by it…