Category: Universals Archive

Universal 663: tag questions with ¬rising contour ⇒ tag questions with rising contour Original The presence of tag questions with nonrising (or higher pitched or…

Universal 679: double negation ⇒ Neg Verb Neg Original If there is double negation within a language, then the negatives normally precede and follow the…

Universal 695: Original Standardized IF there are more than three vowels, THEN / ¥ / or / ™ / will be among them. Keywords vowel…

Universal 711: Original The phrasal categories appear to form a hierarchy: S —VP—AP—PP—NP.It is claimed that a language will not use one co-ordination strategy for…

Universal 727: Original Vowels on low tones are longer than those on high tones, other things being equal. Standardized IF a vowel is on a…

Universal 744: Original The Nominal-Switch Universal (part 1):In cases where a nominal Nominal/Locational-switch is motivated by conditions of Time-Stability, the nominal strategy will encode the…

Universal 760: Original … palatal noninjective stops have a strong tendency to be replaced by alveopalatal affricates. Standardized Palatal noninjective stops have a strong tendency…

Universal 776: /h/ ⇒ primary fricative Original A language is very unlikely to have /h/ unless it also has a primary fricative. Standardized IF there…

Universal 792: secondary nasal consonant ⇒ primary nasal consonant Original No language has Secondary Nasal Consonants unless it has one or more Primary Nasal Consonants.…

Universal 808: fricative ⇒ stop Original In the linguistic systems of the world, fricatives cannot exist unless stops exist as well. Standardized IF there are…