Category: Universals Archive

Universal 463: Original If a language has an opposition of intransitive verbs of action and state, then all (or almost all), verbs meaning “to move…

Universal 479: ¬past progressive form ⇒ ¬future progressive form Original There is never a special future progressive form unless there is a past progressive form…

Universal 495: VSO ⇒ no Q positioned relative to a particular word in the sentence Original Question particles or affixes, when specified in position by…

Universal 511: Tr ⇒ Du; ¬Du ⇒ ¬Tr;Du ⇒ Pl; ¬Pl => ¬Du Original No language has a trial number unless it has a dual.…

Universal 527: Original Zero is never expressed as part of the numeral system. Standardized Zero is never expressed as part of the numeral system. Keywords…

Universal 543: Original If a link for subtraction is final, the language is postpositional. Standardized IF a link for subtraction is final, THEN there are…

Universal 560: Original If an atomic numeral expression is borrowed from one language into another, all higher atomic expressions are borrowed. Standardized IF an atomic…

Universal 576: semantic agreement for personal pronouns ⇒ semantic agreement for relative pronouns ⇒ ⇒ semantic agreement for predicates ⇒ semantic agreement for attributes Original…

Universal 592: Original In all languages, some instances of adjacency relations among syntactic constituents symbolize semantic relatedness between the corresponding meanings; but in all languages…

Universal 608: reflexive (1 &, v 2 ) ⇒ reflexive (3 ) Original If there are reflexive pronouns distinct from non-reflexive ones with 1st and/or…