Category: Universals Archive

Universal 876: Original In initial clusters, the existence of at least one cluster consisting of obstruent + nasal implies the existence of at least one…

Universal 892: Original See Graphics Standardized See Graphics for Moderate rhythmic holism Keywords syllable structure, stress, vowel harmony, vowel system Domain inflection, prosodic phonology Type…

Universal 908: Location word (adverb) > Object word (noun) > Property word (adjective) > Action word (verb) Original The Verbalization Hierarchy of Intransitive Main Predicates:Semantic:…

Universal 924: Original If in a given language, stressed syllabic consonants become non-syllabic or are lost, then nonstressed syllabic consonants have become nonsyllabic or have…

Universal 940: Original Nasal vowels, apart from borrowing and analogical formations, always result from the loss of a Primary Nasal Consonant. Standardized Nasal vowels, apart…

Universal 956: Original The presence of C1C2 makes -C2C1 as likely or more likely than -C1C2 Standardized The presence of C1C2– makes -C2C1 as likely…

Universal 972: Original If there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, the forms (stems and affixes) of singular are more likely replaced than forms…

Universal 988: exceed comparative ⇒ conditional deranking & limited identity deletion Original Languages with an exceed comparative are languages with conditional deranking and limited identity…

Universal 1004: Original An utterance boundary is necessarily also a word boundary (but not necessarily the reverse), i.e. if a word cannot begin with a…

Universal 1020: Original If a language has a parts-of speech system of types 1-3/4 and has Predicate-final word order, then it has ModifierHead basic word…