Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1973: Original A grammatical element is less likely to be omitted the greater the ambiguity which would result from its omission. Standardized A grammatical…

Universal 1989: Original simplification … in the typologically expected direction …In the process of category-collapsing, we normally expect as well as find the non-human or…

Universal 2005: Original The type of gender resolution system found is constrained by the [gender] assignment system of the language. Languages with strict semantic assignment…

Universal 2021: Original (i) In all languages, people can describe cognitively based feelings via observable bodily “symptoms” (that is, via some bodily events regarded as…

Universal 6: case with only zero exponence ⇒ functions of that case include that of encoding IntrSubj Original Where there is a case system, the…

Universal 22: Original In all languages, if Suffixaufnahme occurs when the adnominal case is the same as the head case, then it also occurs when…

Universal 38: Original If a language has Suffixaufnahme both in headed and headless NPs at one time and at some later time it has Suffixaufnahme…

Universal 54: Original If in the NP-internal distribution of case a lexically assigned case competes with a structurally or otherwise assigned case, lexical case takes…

Universal 70: Prep & ¬SVO ⇒ (N A ⇒ N G) Original If a language has prepositions and any verb position other than SVO, then…

Universal 86: Original If in a language the verb agrees with anything other than subjects and direct objects, it agrees with some or all indirect…