Category: Universals Archive

Universal 53: Original In the construction of possessive attribution, only the possessor may agree in case with the possessum, while only the possessum may agree…

Universal 69: Prep ⇒ (N A ⇒ N G) Original If a language has Prep word order, then if the adjective follows the noun, the…

Universal 85: Original The non-null set of agreeing non-subjects of any language includes some or all direct objects; or in other words, if in a…

Universal 101: N Poss ⇒ N A;equivalently: A N ⇒ Poss N Original If the possessive adjective follows the noun, then the descriptive adjective follows…

Universal 117: Original In languages with a distinction between active (animate) vs. passive (inanimate) nouns, passive nouns don’t distinguish numbers (SG/PL). Standardized IF nouns are…

Universal 133: Original It is relatively unusual for languages (in ANCs) to combine sentential dependent-marking for the S with non-sentential marking for the A or…

Universal 149: Original The number of inflectional classes of adjectives is never larger than the number of inflectional classes of nouns. Standardized The number of…

Universal 165: reflexive (1) ⇒ reflexive (2) ⇒ reflexive (3) Original If a pronominal reflexive is used in the nth person, then it is used…

Universal 181: NP-conjunctive (=Comit) ⇒ SVO Original An NP-conjunctive that has the same form as the comitative marker correlates positively with SVO, and negatively with…

Universal 197: Original No set of case marking elements both precede the head noun and participate in agreement. Standardized IF a relational marker (case, adposition)…