Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1700: Original The Head Law:A syllable head is the more preferred: (a) the closer the number of speech sounds in the head is to…

Universal 1716: pronominal possessors co-occur with definite articles ⇒ nominal possessives co-occur with pronominal possessors Original If possessive determiners co-occur with definite articles, then nominal…

Universal 1732: Original The definite article never carries more gender, number, and/or case inflection in adnominal use than it does in pronominal use. Standardized IF…

Universal 1748: Original If there are synonyms for an ordinal numeral, then there are also synonyms for ordinals for all lower numbers. Standardized IF there…

Universal 1764: Original The basic direction of merging of the consonant endings is unmistakable: invariably from the front to the back. Standardized IF back and…

Universal 1780: Original If a language has fricative + stop onset clusters, then it has stop + fricative onset clusters. Standardized IF there are fricative…

Universal 1796: Original In preconsonantal position distinctive nasalization develops preferentially before continuants. Standardized In preconsonantal position distinctive nasalization develops preferentially before continuants. Keywords nasalization, preconsonantal,…

Universal 1812: Original The presence of a voiceless dental-alveolar sibilant ejective affricate [”ts‘”] in a language implies the presence of a voiceless velar ejective stop…

Universal 1828: Original Standardized IF there is a prenasalized labialized voiced velar stop, THEN there is also a prenasalized voiced velar stop. Keywords stop, velar,…

Universal 1844: Original Standardized IF there is a breathy voice bilabial stop, THEN there is also a voiceless aspirated bilabial stop. Keywords stop, bilabial, aspirated,…