Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1177: Original There are contrasting transfer patterns for thumbs and big toes on the one hand and the remaining digits on the other: Whereas…

Universal 1193: Original If the head of a restrictive relative clause does function as the subject of the restricting clause then no personal pronoun will…

Universal 1209: incorporation of indirect objects ⇒ incorporation of non-agental subjects ⇒ incorporation of direct objects Original If a language incorporates indirect objects, then it…

Universal 1225: terminative v prosecutive ⇒ allative Original If there is a terminative (‘up to where’) or a prosecutive (‘where to’), then there will be…

Universal 1242: Original The likelihood of initial clusters is greater for languages with final consonants than for languages without final consonants, even greater for languages…

Universal 1258: Original Unstressed vowels are more likely to assimilate than stressed vowels. Standardized Unstressed vowels are more likely to assimilate than stressed vowels. Keywords…

Universal 1274: Original The same nuclear tagmeme which occurs initially in the unitransitive dominant order will occur initially in the bitransitive order. Standardized IF an…

Universal 1290: definite article (possessed NPs) ⇒ definite article (non-possessed NPs) Original If possessed NPs show the definite article, then so do non-possessed NPs. Standardized…

Universal 1306: SOV ⇒ Mood affixes on V are suffixed Original If a language has SOV, mood affixes on verb (if any) are suffixed with…

Universal 1322: Original No human language has a grammatically homogeneous vocabulary. Standardized No human language has a grammatically homogeneous vocabulary. Keywords vocabulary Domain lexicon Type…