Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1268: Original Hierarchy of quantifiers: each > every > all > most > many > several > some (+NPPl) > a few (‘>’ means…

Universal 1284: Original If nasality co-occurs in the neighborhood of a vowel or is inherent in the vowel itself of a given height m, then…

Universal 1300: postposition ⇒ Nominalizing affixes on N are suffixed Original If a language is postpositional, nominalizing affixes on noun (if any) are suffixed with…

Universal 1316: long scrambling ⇒ short scrambling Original If a language has long scrambling, it also has short scrambling. Standardized IF there is long scrambling,…

Universal 1332: Original If a language has a vowel system, it has contrasts of tongue height in that system. Standardized IF there are contrasts of…

Universal 1348: Original A subtrahend is always a simple lexical expression. Standardized In numeral systems, a subtrahend is always a simple lexical expression. Keywords numeral…

Universal 1364: Original In systems with more than one base, there is a base, the base for predictable explanation, above which in all numerals certain…

Universal 1380: Original Question-word Fronting and Basic Word Order:A fronted WH-question word will be preferred across languages in proportion to the distance between WH and…

Universal 1396: locative argument reduced adverbials ⇒ temporal argument-reduced adverbials Original If a language has predicate-reduced adverbials, then at least some of them will have…

Universal 1412: Original All languages have constructions whose primary function is to place new or contrastive topics at the beginning of the sentence. Standardized All…