Category: Universals Archive

Universal 2000: Original If a particular target type can mark agreement in gender then in many languages it must. … This may be called “enforced”…

Universal 2016: Original In all languages, some feelings can be described as “good” and some as “bad” (while some may be viewed as neither “good”…

Universal 3: ergative alignment ⇒ also accusative alignment Original Grammatical systems with ergativity tend to have ergative-accusative splits. Standardized IF alignment is ergative for some…

Universal 17: SA head-present ⇒ SA head-missing Original If Suffixaufnahme occurs with the head present, it also occurs with the head missing. Standardized IF Suffixaufnahme…

Universal 33: SA ⇒ external case without internal case Original If a language has Suffixaufnahme, it also has the external case occurring without the internal…

Universal 49: Original Case and number agreement of attributive adjectives are determined independently: number agreement is controlled by head nouns; case is distributed among the…

Universal 65: SOV ⇒ (A N ⇒ G N) Original If a language has SOV word order, then if the adjective precedes the noun, the…

Universal 81: Original There is no language in which an accusative object must be first demoted via dative-shift before it can be relativized. Standardized Relativization…

Universal 97: Prep ⇒ (A Adv ⇒ A Mark Stand) Original If a language has Prep word order, then if the adverb follows the adjective…

Universal 113: Adj Qual ⇒ N Adj Original Adj Qual languages exhibit a clear tendency to be N Adj. Standardized IF adjectives precede qualifiers, THEN…