Category: Universals Archive

Universal 571: Original Hierarchy of syntactic bondedness (stronger > weaker): article+noun > deictic+noun < interrogative+noun < quantifier/indefinite+noun < adjective+noun >> participle+noun > relative clause+noun. As…

Universal 587: gender inflection ⇒ flexive Original … eine höchst bemerkenswerte Erscheinung, die nur in flektierenden Sprachen anzutreffen ist, das ist das grammatische Geschlecht.(Grammatical gender…

Universal 603: Original If in a language the definiteness of a class of noun phrases is an order-significant property, this class will include both objects…

Universal 619: gapping for attributive ⇒ gapping for non-direct object ⇒ gapping for direct object = gapping for subject Original If a given language can…

Universal 635: SA ⇒ ergative V non-accusative alignment Original If a language has Suffixaufnahme, then (perhaps) it is predominantly of ergative or other non-accusative alignment.…

Universal 651: unlimited consonant clustering ⇔ VS order;limitations on consonant clustering ⇔ SV order Original Unlimited consonant clustering correlates with VS order, limitations on consonant…

Universal 667: SOV ⇒ ¬information-question inversion Original While languages of all basic order types may have information-question-inversion, SOV languages are less likely than others to…

Universal 683: Original If syntactic Negation, then the following factors are likely:a. moveability of Negation;b. prosodic independence (e.g. the Negation morpheme carries a stress of…

Universal 699: Original Languages with eight or more vowels have /e/. Standardized IF there are more than seven vowels, THEN /e/ will be among them.…

Universal 715: Original A larger number of tone levels occupy a larger pitch range than a smaller number. Standardized The larger the number of (phonological)…