Category: Universals Archive

Universal 754: Original For injectives, …, the bilabial is clearly the favoured point of articulation. Standardized IF an obstruent is injective, THEN it will most…

Universal 770: voiced primary fricative ⇒ unvoiced primary fricative Original The presence of a voiced primary fricative in a language is highly likely to imply…

Universal 786: Original The number of secondary oral stops in a given language is not likely to be greater than that of primary oral stops.…

Universal 802: back consonant ⇒ front consonant Original No language has back consonants without containing front consonants. Standardized IF there are back consonants, THEN there…

Universal 818: Original Standardized Normal hierarchy of increasing markedness in vowels: /E / ⇒ /a/ ⇒ /e/ ⇒ /i/ ⇒ /ü/ ⇒ /ö/ ⇒ /œ…

Universal 834: Original Languages with two or more r-types are unlikely to restrict the contrast to place alone. Standardized In languages with more than two…

Universal 850: Original In final clusters, the existence of at least one liquid + nasal cluster implies the existence of at least one liquid +…

Universal 866: Original In final clusters, the existence of at least one sequence consisting of a nasal followed by a liquid, a nasal followed by…

Universal 882: Original Maximal back vowel height is never higher than maximal front vowel height, although the converse may be true. Standardized IF maximal back…

Universal 898: coalescence of the object ⇔ non-referentiality of object & habitual aspect Original The coalescence of the object generally goes hand in hand with…