Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1688: posterior consecutive deranking & SVO ⇒ conditional deranking Original If a language has posterior consecutive deranking and its word order is SVO, then…

Universal 1704: Original It follows from the Head Law () that a syllable will be the more preferred, the greater the Consonantal Strength of its…

Universal 1720: Original If the article co-occurs with the noun that is accompanied by a pronominal possessor, it also co-occurs with the noun if the…

Universal 1736: Original If a less peripherally ordered noun phrase constituent marks gender, number, and/or case redundantly, so can all more peripherally ordered constituents. Standardized…

Universal 1752: Original Provided cardinal and ordinal numerals are ordered differently relative to nouns, cardinals always precede nouns and ordinals always follow them. Standardized When…

Universal 1768: Original Nasal effacement applies to nasals after long vowels in preference to nasals after short vowels. Standardized IF nasals are effaced [deleted?] after…

Universal 1784: Original The Particle Strategy: The more short, particle-like words a sentence contains, the more likely it is to be classified as belonging to…

Universal 1800: Original Syllables and words are more likely to contain obstruents syllable and word-initially, and sonorants finally. Standardized IF obstruents occur syllable- and word-finally,…

Universal 1816: Original The presence of a voiceless dental-alveolar sibilant ejective affricate [”ts‘”] does not occur without a voiced dental-alveolar nasal [n]. Standardized IF there…

Universal 1832: Original Standardized IF there is a breathy voiced bilabial stop, THEN there is also a breathy voiced velar stop. Keywords stop, bilabial, velar,…