Category: Universals Archive

Universal 241: inflection ⇔ free order; ¬inflection ⇔ rigid order Original If there is segmental relation marking, word order is free, and vice versa.OR equivalently:If…

Universal 257: Original Among the most important morphological implications of the active languages are the following: diathesis of the active verb differentiates between centrifugal and…

Universal 273: aspect (Indic.) ⇒ aspect (Imper.) Original If in a language there is imperative mood and there are aspect distinctions in the indicative mood,…

Universal 289: postconsonantal aspiration ⇒ prevocalic aspiration; Original Prevocalic aspiration is typologically more frequent than postconsonantal aspiration. Standardized IF there is postconsonantal aspiration, THEN there…

Universal 305: passives of INTR ⇒ passives of TR Original If a language has passive voice forms derived from intransitive verbs, it has passive voice…

Universal 321: acc (nouns) ⇒ some non-zero allomorphs Original If nouns have a syntactic form of the accusative, then at least some of its allomorphs…

Universal 337: Original If the verb agrees with subject and object and there are confix-forms such as s-V-s-o, then there are s-V-o forms as well.…

Universal 353: Original If in a language the dominant order is OS, then the order VS is also dominant. Standardized IF the dominant order is…

Universal 369: Original In agglutinative languages casual or fast speech shows less phonological deletion, fusion, and weakening than in flective ones, owing to the lack…

Universal 385: Original The most neutral position for focus in a language will be the position normally occupied by the direct object. Standardized The most…