Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1934: local indefinite is borrowed ⇒ impersonal indefinite is borrowed Original If there is a word-form loan of a local indefinite, then it is…

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 15: OV ⇒ V Neg & V Caus & V Refl & V Recipr; VO ⇒ Neg V & Caus V & Refl V…

Universal 31: Suffixaufnahme with nominals ⇒ other attributive constructions Original If a language has Suffixaufnahme, it also has other NP-internal attributive constituents showing agreement in…

Universal 47: Original Nominal predicate complements are more likely than adjectival and participial predicate complements not to agree in case with the noun phrase (NP)…

Universal 63: Original When the adjective follows the noun, the adjective expresses all the inflectional categories of the noun. In such cases the noun may…