Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1199: Original Every natural language has syntactic constituents (called noun-phrases) whose semantic function is to express generalized quantifiers over the domain of discourse. Standardized…

Universal 1215: Original Nouns denoting body parts are the preferred sources for the grammaticalization of local adpositions. Standardized Nouns denoting body parts are the preferred…

Universal 1231: Original Diachronically, when an allative loses its local meaning (or acquires additional, non-local meanings), it will become a dative (expressing beneficiary and/or indirect…

Universal 1247: Original If tone spreading takes place from a mid tone into a following low, then tone spreading also takes place from a high…

Universal 1263: assimilation of vowels with normal duration ⇒ assimilation of reduced vowels Original Assimilation of vowels with normal duration implies assimilation of reduced vowels…

Universal 1279: Original If the indirect object is marked in the prototype bitransitive clause, it is also marked in a non-prototype bitransitive clause. Standardized IF…

Universal 1295: unobservable > irreversible observable > monovalent reversible > bivalent locational Original Hierarchy of resultative formation:unobservable > irreversible observable > monovalent reversible > bivalent…

Universal 1311: SOV ⇒ causative affixes on V are suffixed Original If a language has SOV, causative affixes on verb (if any) are suffixed with…

Universal 1327: Original Every human language makes use of distinction of vowel color. Standardized Every human language makes use of distinction of vowel color. Keywords…

Universal 1343: O V ⇒ PP V;V O ⇒ V PP Original Adpositional phrases more often precede the verb in OV languages and more often…