Category: Universals Archive

Universal 641: Original Variation of the category of person in personal pronouns so as to show degrees of respect or social distance usually occurs in…

Universal 657: Original There is no reduplication pattern where the constituent to be reduplicated may be freely chosen from among the included subconstituents. Standardized There…

Universal 673: (person & number) in indicative ⇒ (person & number) in imperative Original If there is person-number distinction in indicative forms, the same distinction…

Universal 689: Original The combination of two obstruent consonants which are different only with regard to their belonging to different ‘Lokalisierungsreihen’ (e.g. pt, xs, sf),…

Universal 705: Original There is a tendency for high and low short vowels to be more central than the corresponding long vowels. Standardized There is…

Universal 721: contour tones ⇒ level tones Original If a language has contour tones, it also has level tones. Standardized IF there are contour tones,…

Universal 737: Original The Human Propensity Universal:In a split-adjective language, human-propensity predicates will be encoded by the verbal strategy. Standardized IF there is a nominal-verbal…

Universal 753: Original A contrast between five basic vowel qualities is the norm for a human language, and in general the most common systems are…

Universal 769: Original In a given language the number of voiceless primary fricatives is highly likely to be greater than the number of voiced ones.…

Universal 785: secondary oral stops ⇒ primary oral stops Original A language is highly unlikely to have secondary oral stops unless it also has primary…