Category: Universals Archive

Universal 361: Original The extent of “material“ articulation, pertaining in particular to (a) the elaboration of sound systems, (b) the complexity of syllable structures, (c)…

Universal 377: topic marker ⇒ high topic prominence Original If a language has topic markers, then it will be highly topic prominent (in the sense…

Universal 393: person-number (adposition) ⇒ person-number (noun) ⇒ person-number (verb) Original If a language shows person-number marking on adpositions, it also shows the same on…

Universal 409: ((person marker (possessee) = person marker (verb(non-indicative))) ⇒((person marker (possessee) = person marker (verb (indicative))) Original If person marking is phonologically identical for…

Universal 425: Pl (nouns) ⇒ Pl (pronouns) Original The presence of plural in the nouns of a particular language always implies its presence in some…

Universal 441: ¬SENT (ANC) ⇒ S in intransitive ANC is genitivized Original If the ANC is not of the SENT type, then the S of…

Universal 457: h V [ +pal ] ⇒ h V [ +vel ] ; Original /h/ is more likely to occur preceding a velar vowel…

Universal 473: accusative/nominative (noun) ⇒ accusative/nominative (1 V 2 V 3 person pronoun) Original If in a language there is an opposition ”accusative/nominative” in the…

Universal 489: SOV ⇒ postposition Original With overwhelmingly greater than chance frequency, languages with normal SOV order are postpositional. Standardized With overwhelmingly greater than chance…

Universal 505: Original If both the derivation and inflection follow the root, or they both precede the root, the derivation is always between the root…