Category: Universals Archive

Universal 521: adnominal Adj agreement (noun) ⇒ adnominal Dem agreement (noun) Original In more than one language, and possibly in all, if the adnominal adjective…

Universal 537: Original If in a language, in any sum the larger addend precedes the smaller, then the same order holds for all larger numbers…

Universal 553: Original If a language has both partitive and adjectival Quantifier Noun constructions, the smallest number which employs the partitive is larger than the…

Universal 569: ¬ case (noun) ⇒ article;¬ article ⇒ case (noun) Original No (Indo-European) language does without both morphological case marking and articles. Standardized (In…

Universal 585: increased volume of sound ⇔ increased emphasis; Original Increased volume of sound is systematically correlated with increased emphasis in all languages. Standardized IF…

Universal 601: Original If there is agreement between the verb and some of its noun phrase complements with respect to “affectedness” or quality, the noun…

Universal 617: Original Whenever a language has both a more explicit and less explicit way of forming relative clauses, then the more explicit type will…

Universal 633: SA ⇒ word-class distinction between nouns and adjectives is blurred Original If a language has Suffixaufnahme, then it has blurred word-class distinction between…

Universal 649: Original Reflexive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and pronominalized nouns or pronominalized nominal expressions used in reference, usually indicate greater respect or social distance than…

Universal 665: Original Yes-no question inversion implies a resultant VSO order. In periphrastic constructions the finite auxiliary always occupies the V slot of the inverted…