Category: Universals Archive

Universal 745: Original The Nominal-Switch Universal (part 2):In cases where a nominal Verbal/Nominal-switch is motivated by conditions of Time-Stability, the nominal strategy will encode the…

Universal 761: Original Syllabic initial position is favoured for glottalic consonants in general. Standardized IF there are glottalic consonants in positions other than syllable-initial, THEN…

Universal 777: Original Languages usually have at least three primary oral stops. Standardized There are at least three primary oral stops. Keywords consonant, oral, stop…

Universal 793: Original In a given language, the number of Secondary Nasal Consonants is never greater than the number of Primary Nasal Consonants. Standardized IF…

Universal 810: stress for semantic contrast ⇒ non-monosyllabic Original Stress can be used for semantic contrasts only in non-monosyllabic languages. Standardized IF stress is used…

Universal 826: correlatives ⇒ ¬ RelN Original If a language has correlative relative constructions, it does not have prenominal ad-relative* clauses. Standardized IF there are…

Universal 842: Original There are no initial or final clusters in which all obstruent combinations are heterogeneous in regard to voicing. Standardized There are no…

Universal 858: Original In final systems, clusters with two members never consist of a hushing followed by a hissing sibilant. Standardized In final systems, clusters…

Universal 874: Original In initial clusters, the existence of at least one cluster consisting of nasal + liquid implies the existence of at least one…

Universal 890: Original Iambic vs. Troachaic phrase accent and its many correlatesSee Graphics Standardized See Graphics for Iambic vs. Troachaic phrase accent and its many…