Category: Universals Archive

Universal 434: full passive ⇒ reduced passive; ¬ reduced passive ⇒ ¬ passive Original If a language has full passives, it also has the reduced…

Universal 450: genitive (possessee) ⇒ genitive (possessor) Original A possessee marked for genitive implies a construction in which the possessor is so marked. Standardized IF…

Universal 466: Original There are no differences in the grammatical patterning of subjects of the sentences meaning “a person/thing belongs to a certain group of…

Universal 482: DO morphologically marked ⇒ IndO morphologically marked Original If the direct object is morphologically marked in a sentence, then the indirect object is…

Universal 498: OV ⇒ Subordinate-Main verb Original If the nominal object always precedes the verb, then verb forms subordinate to the main verb also precede…

Universal 514: Original A language never has more gender categories in non-singular numbers than in the singular. Standardized IF there are n genders in the…

Universal 530: Original The largest value of L in numeral systems with only simple lexical representation is 5 and the smallest is 2. Standardized IF…

Universal 546: Original In languages in which the expression of plurality is facultative in the noun, the singular may be used with numerals designating numbers…

Universal 562: Du (¬natural pair noun) ⇒ Du (natural pair noun) Original If there is a dual with nouns other than those denoting natural pairs,…

Universal 578: Original If stacked targets (such as attributive adjective and a determiner) may differ in agreeing on a referential-semantic or a syntactic basis, the…