Category: Universals Archive

Universal 644: Original Use of the 3rd person personal pronoun to show greater respect or social distance than the 2nd person pronoun in reference to…

Universal 660: Original There is no reduplication pattern that would involve reference to phonological properties other than syllable number, consonantality-vowelhood, and absolute linear position. Standardized…

Universal 676: replacive RelCl ⇒ OV & left-to-right deletion of anaphora Original If a language has replacive relative clauses, then in the basic word order…

Universal 692: Original Assimilation rule: a nasal consonant assimilates to its following consonant concerning its place of articulation.This rule is universal in two respects: it…

Universal 708: Original […] eine Sprache, die es […] liebt, modifizierende oder grammatische Elemente in großer Zahl dem Wortstamm unterzuordnen, wird keine Neigung zu einem…

Universal 724: Original A descending pitch ramp follows a voiceless obstruent; a rising pitch ramp follows a voiced obstruent. Standardized IF an obstruent is voiceless,…

Universal 740: Original The Universal of Adjectival V/N-Switching:In languages with verbal-nominal switching for adjectives, the nominal option will always encode the more time-stable reading. Standardized…

Universal 756: Original I know of no language with more than four injective obstruents. Standardized There are at most four injective obstruents. Keywords consonant, obstruent,…

Universal 772: Original In a given language the number of primary fricatives is very unlikely to be greater than the number of stops and affricates…

Universal 788: Original If in a given language there is only one Primary Nasal Consonant, it is /n/, that is, its most characteristic allophone is…