Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1389: Original Retrospective languages tend toward finer temporal gradation in the past than in the future and prospective languages tend toward no or equal…

Universal 1405: 2Du pronoun ⇒ 1Du pronoun &, V 3Du pronoun Original The existence of a 2nd person dual pronoun seems to always imply that…

Universal 1421: Original There is a tendency for languages having nasalized vowels to show more asymmetry than languages having long vowels. Standardized There is a…

Universal 1437: Original Nominal gender in plural suffixes is less distinct. Standardized IF plural inflection is differentiated as to genders, THEN singular inflection is also…

Universal 1453: Original In an overwhelming majority of languages, if the metaperson ‘hearer’ in the non-singular (and consequently, the metaperson ‘hearer(s) + non-participant'(s); see )…

Universal 1469: Original In an overwhelming majority of languages, if some form denotes the metaperson ‘hearer(s) + non-participant(s)’, then it cannot include among its meanings…

Universal 1485: Incl/Excl (Tr) ⇒ Incl/Excl (Du) & Incl/Excl (Pl) Original If in a language there is an opposition of the metapersons ‘speaker + hearer(s)’…

Universal 1501: Original If there are anomalous allophones of any phonemes in onomatopoetic and expressive forms of a language, then allophones of this type are…

Universal 1517: OS ⇒ prepositions Original Subject-final languages are generally prepositional rather than postpositional. Standardized IF subject full noun phrases follow object full noun phrases,…

Universal 1533: verb-initial ⇒ Comp Stand Original In verb-initial languages the comparative form precedes the standard. Standardized IF word order is verb-initial, THEN the comparative…