Category: Universals Archive

Universal 783: Original In a given language, the number of primary oral affricates will be less than the number of primary oral stops. Standardized The…

Universal 799: non-tensedness ⇔ verby adjectives Original The Tensedness Universals of Adjective Encoding:B. If a language is non-tensed, it will have verby adjectives. If a…

Universal 815: mora ⇒ ¬ monosyllabic tonal L Original Mora occurs only in non-monosyllabic tonal languages. Standardized IF moras matter [for what?], THEN the language…

Universal 831: Original Languages with two or more liquids are most likely to have at least one lateral, and a lateral/non-lateral contrast. Standardized In languages…

Universal 847: Original In final clusters the presence of at least one combination of stop + stop implies the presence of at least one combination…

Universal 863: Original In initial clusters the presence of at least one sequence of voiced nasal + unvoiced homorganic obstruent implies the presence of at…

Universal 879: Original A language which has any affricates includes among them at least one in the dental-alveolar or alveo-palatal region. Standardized IF there are…

Universal 895: accusative structure ⇔ future/present/imperfective tense;ergative structure ⇔ perfect/past/perfective tense Original Provided there is actancy variation in terms of tense, accusative constructions will always…

Universal 911: subject > direct object > indirect object > oblique object Original The grammatical encoding of the causee proceeds as follows: the causee occupies…

Universal 927: Original A consonant may become syllabic only if it is an adjacent margin of a syncopated vowel. Standardized A consonant may become syllabic…