Category: Universals Archive

Universal 865: Original In initial clusters the existence of at least one sequence consisting of a voiced liquid followed by a nasal implies the existence…

Universal 881: lower high back rounded vowel ⇒ high v lower high front vowel Original A lower high back rounded vowel implies a high or…

Universal 897: individuated/thematic object ⇔ objective conjugation;non-individuated/non-thematic object ⇔ subjective conjugation Original Whenever there is an opposition between a subjective and an objective conjugation, the…

Universal 913: speaker (1st person pronouns) > addressee (2nd person pronouns) > kin > rational > human > animate > inanimate Original The Animacy hierarchy:speaker…

Universal 929: syllabic stops V syllabic affricates ⇒ syllabic fricatives Original If a language contains syllabic stops or affricates, it contains syllabic fricatives. Standardized IF…

Universal 945: Original Of the two vowels i and ü, i may originate from ü but not ü from i. Standardized When there is i…

Universal 961: Original … definite articles are often synchronically identical with or clearly related to demonstratives which are also in the overwhelming majority of cases…

Universal 977: Original If there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, the stems and affixes of common nouns are more likely replaced than stems…

Universal 993: absolute deranking ⇒ SOV v VSO;absolute deranking ⇒ ¬ SVO Original Languages with absolute consecutive deranking have either SOV or VSO . Standardized…

Universal 1009: Original Accent on the third syllable from the left edge and on the fourth syllable from the right edge are unattested patterns in…