Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1964: Original all languages exhibit the following property: if clusters of n Cs are possible syllable-initially, then clusters of n-1 Cs are also possible…

Universal 1980: Original rigid type III (verb-final) …Sequences of events of the ‘go, do, and return’ type appear as ‘having done, return’ rather than ‘go…

Universal 1996: Original Note that there are no syntactic systems [of gender assignment] [only semantic, morphological, and phonological systems of gender assignment]. Standardized Gender cannot…

Universal 2012: Original A system of switch-reference marking is found only in languages with an accusative syntax. Standardized IF there is switch-reference marking, THEN alignment…

Universal 2028: Original Generally agreed upon “facts” about contour tones (marked = more complex, rarer): (a) contour tones are more marked than level tones;(b) rising…

Universal 13: Original If direct objects may control agreement (or take case marking) without doing so obligatorily, it will be the more definite and/or the…

Universal 28: Präfixaufnahme ⇒ ¬ligative Original In no language is there Präfixaufnahme involving a ligative. Standardized IF Aufnahme is Präfixaufnahme rather than Suffixaufnahme, THEN there…

Universal 44: Original Standardized Assuming that grammatical relations are ordered from left to right according to their decreasing semantic concreteness and correspondingly increasing grammaticalization as…

Universal 60: Adj Adv ⇒ N Adj & VO Original If some or all adverbs follow the adjective they modify, then the language is one…

Universal 76: Original Only languages in which promotion to subject via passivization results in verb coding the semantic case of the promoted non-agent exhibit the…