Category: Universals Archive

Universal 576: semantic agreement for personal pronouns ⇒ semantic agreement for relative pronouns ⇒ ⇒ semantic agreement for predicates ⇒ semantic agreement for attributes Original…

Universal 592: Original In all languages, some instances of adjacency relations among syntactic constituents symbolize semantic relatedness between the corresponding meanings; but in all languages…

Universal 608: reflexive (1 &, v 2 ) ⇒ reflexive (3 ) Original If there are reflexive pronouns distinct from non-reflexive ones with 1st and/or…

Universal 624: SA ⇒ verb-initial V verb-final Original If a language has Suffixaufnahme, then it has verb-initial or verb-final constituent order. Standardized IF there is…

Universal 640: Original Variation of more than one pronominal category may occur in the same language in reference showing different degrees of respect. Standardized Variation…

Universal 656: Original The probability of homophony is inversely related to the number of principal phonemes and to the length of sequence units (phrases, words,…

Universal 672: Original See Graphics Standardized see Graphics Keywords order, noun, adjective, attributive, verb, object, topic, comment, preposition, postposition dependent-marking, analytic, synthetic morphosyntax, word accent,…

Universal 688: Original In exclusively prefixing languages, if symmetrical reduplicative compounds exist, they will be overwhelmingly of the alliterative type. Standardized IF bound morphology is…

Universal 704: Original The number of height distinctions in front vowels is equal to or greater than the number in back vowels. Standardized IF there…

Universal 720: Original A language which permits successive shifts of tone level in opposite directions within a word permits words with only one shift of…