Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1657: Original All systems distinguish male and female parent by separate terms even though very frequently other kin types are included in the referents…

Universal 1673: VSO ⇒ no question particle in Wh word questions Original In most VSO languages, the question particle (corresponding to the English if/whether) does…

Universal 1689: posterior consecutive deranking & VSO ⇒ absolute deranking Original If a language has posterior consecutive deranking and its word order is VSO, then…

Universal 1705: Original The Weight Law (aka Stressed Syllables Law or Prokosch’s Law):In stress accent languages an accented syllable is the more preferred, the closer…

Universal 1721: Original If the article co-occurs with the noun that is accompanied by an adjacent possessor, it also co-occurs with the noun if the…

Universal 1737: Original If the adnominal demonstrative or possessive occurs with a noun that is accompanied by the definite article at one point in time…

Universal 1753: Original Whenever only one (cardinal or ordinal) numeral differs from all others in its ordering relative to the noun, it will be that…

Universal 1769: Original Nasal effacement applies to nasals after inherently strong vowels in preference to nasals after inherently weak vowels. Standardized IF nasals are effaced…

Universal 1785: Original The shorter a linguistic expression is, the more likely it is will be associated with familiarity and high frequency of occurrence.The longer…

Universal 1801: Original Nasals tend to endure word-finally after obstruents have been lost. Standardized In word-final nasal + obstruent clusters, IF the nasal is deleted,…