Category: Universals Archive

Universal 827: Original Relative markers of the same form as interrogative pronouns are found only in postnominal ad-relatives* (and their right-extraposed** counterparts) and in correlative…

Universal 843: Original In final clusters, the existence of at least one sequence consisting of a nasal (voiced or unvoiced) followed by a heterogenic obstruent…

Universal 859: Original In initial clusters the existence of at least one sequence containing a liquid, whether voiced or unvoiced, immediately followed by an obstruent…

Universal 875: Original In final clusters, the existence of at least one cluster consisting of nasal + nasal implies the existence of at least one…

Universal 891: Original Iambic vs. Trochaic languagesSee Graphics Standardized see Graphics for Iambic vs. Trochaic languages Keywords stress, syllable, unit, order, object, verb, subject, adverb,…

Universal 907: Original Adpositions may encode the valency-bound syntactic core relations of subject and object and perhaps attribute only if languages dispense with morphological case…

Universal 923: Original If in a given language, syllabic consonants are created by syncope in stressed syllables, then they have been created by stress in…

Universal 939: Original When in a given language there is extensive neutralization of nasal vowels with oral vowels, this occurs next to nasal consonants. Standardized…

Universal 955: Original In languages with both dissolvable and non-dissolvable medial clusters, the former will be significantly more frequent than the latter. Standardized IF there…

Universal 971: Original If there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, short morphemes (stems and affixes) or words more likely cause a re-formation of…