Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1818: Original Standardized IF there is a labialized voiceless uvular stop, THEN there is a voiceless uvular stop. Keywords stop, labial, uvular, voice Domain…

Universal 1834: Original Standardized IF there is a voiceless dental-alveolar nasal, THEN there is also a voiceless bilabial nasal. Keywords nasal, dental-alveolar, bilabial, voice Domain…

Universal 1850: Original Nonlaterals (trills or flaps) have the property of lowering a preceding vowel. Standardized Vowels tend to be lower preceding non-laterals (trills or…

Universal 1866: Original Every speech community seems to have a small lexicon of words used primarily with young children. The words of this special lexicon…

Universal 1882: Original If there is a split between 1st versus 2nd/3rd person marking in modal categories, then it is more likely to occur in:(a)…

Universal 1898: Original Processess of variation of the type of pronoun used in reference for showing degrees of respect or social distance are more common…

Universal 1914: Original OV languages, on the whole, tend to have a marked accusative. Standardized IF basic order is OV, THEN the “promoted” direct object…

Universal 1930: personal indefinite is borrowed ⇒ impersonal indefinite is borrowed Original If there is a word-form loan of a personal indefinite in a language,…

Universal 1946: Original Plural markers tend to originate on personal nouns and to spread in both directions, to inanimate nouns, on the one hand, and…

Universal 1962: Original Within lexical morphemes of the shape C1VC2V, the sonority of C1 tends to be less than that of C2, with C1 tending…