Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1983: Original If an Ex or Cop is grammatically unique, i.e., lacks criterial features of any major word class in the language, it will…

Universal 1999: Original For the simple cardinal numerals, as their arithmetical value increases, so the possibility of agreement in gender decreases. There is a widespread…

Universal 2015: Original All languages have a word for FEEL, undifferentiated between “bodily feelings” (sensations) and “cognitively based” feelings (“emotions”), and distinct from THINK. Standardized…

Universal 16: Original In almost all instances of Suffixaufnahme, the segmental marker of internal case is closer to the stem of the attributive nominal than…

Universal 32: SA ⇒ internal case without external case Original If a language has Suffixaufnahme, it also has the internal case occurring without the external…

Universal 48: Original The noun phrase (NP) internal distribution of case between head noun and any agreeing constituents is determined by dominance relations defined on…

Universal 64: Original In nominative-accusative languages the causee of causative verbs derived from transitive verbs is an oblique object, whereas in ergative languages it is…

Universal 80: Original There is no language in which the subject must be first demoted (via passivization) before it can be relativized. Standardized Relativization is…

Universal 96: Postp ⇒ ((A N v Rel N ⇒ Dem N & Num N & Poss N) & (Dem N v Num N v…

Universal 112: (V O & Adv V) ⇒ Adj N;(O V & V Adv) ⇒ N Adj Original If the adverb occurs on the opposite…