Category: Universals Archive

Universal 163: Original No language uses different dative or spatial function markers for affirmative and negative clause. Standardized Overt marking of dative or spatial functions…

Universal 179: agreement in Case ⇒ agreement in Gender ⇒ agreement in Number Original There is a hierarchy: Number > Gender > Case, such that…

Universal 195: Original If in a language adjectives assign morphological case to their complements, the range of cases assigned by them will include the genitive.…

Universal 211: nominative alignment ⇒ case (Nom/Acc) & personal affix (SUB) Original The most important implications of the nominative type are: the single “subject” series…

Universal 227: Original If a language has only affixes which derive causatives form intransitive verbs, it is unlikely that these affixes will have a permissive…

Universal 243: Du (verb) ⇒ Du (noun) Original If verbs inflect for dual number, nouns inflect for dual number as well. Standardized IF verbs inflect…

Universal 259: primary topicalization ⇒ accusative alignment Original In ergative and active languages only secondary topicalization, by means of changing the word order in the…

Universal 275: category X (Trial) ⇒ category X (Dual) Original In all languages: if there is any grammatical opposition in the forms of Trial, the…

Universal 292: verb agreement (OBL) ⇒ verb agreement (DO) Original In all languages: if the verb agrees with the oblique object, it agrees with the…

Universal 308: Original If active and passive voices differ from each other in nominal actants form, they differ in verb form as well. Standardized IF…