Category: Universals Archive

Universal 128: Original Of the two arguments in transitive ANCs, the one most likely to lose its sentential dependent-marking and head-marking is the A (except…

Universal 144: ¬ Adj agreement ⇒ G N Original If a language has no adjective agreement, then the genitive will precede the noun. Standardized IF…

Universal 160: Original If dative and transitive-clause locative are identically marked, even non-adpositionally, then dative* is also identically marked. Standardized IF dative and transitive-clause locative…

Universal 176: N G ⇒ N Rel; equivalently: Rel N ⇒ G N Original If the genitive follows the noun, then the relative clause follows…

Universal 192: Original A relation that is higher on the hierarchy of centrality (subject-object > local relations; locative > ablative; …) than another one will…

Universal 208: OV ⇒ pitch accent;VO ⇒ stress accent Original OV languages are characterized by pitch accent.VO languages tend to have stress accent accompanied by…

Universal 224: labial/dental stops ⇒ nasal /oral stops Original The first consonantal opposition is that of nasal and oral stop, which is followed by the…

Universal 240: Erg ⇒ G N & N Adj Original If a language has ergative case marking, it will with far more than chance frequency…

Universal 256: gender (noun) ⇒ the same gender (pronoun) Original If there exists a regular gender (nominal class) distinction in a language, this distinction is…