Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1871: Original It holds as a strong statistical implication that whenever there is a 1st person exclusive dual there is also a 1st person…

Universal 1887: Original The Cleftability Hierarchy:Subject > Direct Object > Indirect Object > Oblique NP > Genitive NP > Object of Comparison. Syntactic positions on…

Universal 1903: Original Pure and mixed separatist languages prefer agglutinative morphology and free word order. Standardized IF a language is of the pure or the…

Universal 1919: Original If the verb in main clauses is inflected for subject or object agreement, then the verb in any sentence-like complement type will…

Universal 1935: local interrogative is borrowed ⇒ temporal interrogative is borrowed Original If there is a word-form loan of a local interrogative in a language,…

Universal 1951: Original If a negative polarity item (NPI) (in particular an auxiliary) can occur in some affective context, it will also appear in all…

Universal 1967: Original Every language has at least one set of forms or constructions whose primary function (or one of several major functions) is to…

Universal 1983: Original If an Ex or Cop is grammatically unique, i.e., lacks criterial features of any major word class in the language, it will…

Universal 1999: Original For the simple cardinal numerals, as their arithmetical value increases, so the possibility of agreement in gender decreases. There is a widespread…

Universal 2015: Original All languages have a word for FEEL, undifferentiated between “bodily feelings” (sensations) and “cognitively based” feelings (“emotions”), and distinct from THINK. Standardized…