Category: Universals Archive

Universal 104: Original When noun-phrase internal agreement (in class) is lost, it tends to disappear first on numerals, then on adjectives, then on demonstratives. Standardized…

Universal 120: Original If NP-internal constituents agree in more than two categories, the maximum being four, those will always include number and gender and very…

Universal 136: Original [IF one of the relations of (i) alienability, (ii) inalienability, and (iii) classification is realized formally by a certain construction, THEN no…

Universal 152: noun-like inflection and syntax (lower numerals) ⇒ noun-like inflection and syntax (higher numerals);adjectival inflection and syntax (higher numerals) ⇒ adjectival inflection and syntax…

Universal 169: Original If an adposition and a case affix are involved in a government relation, it is always the adposition that governs the affix…

Universal 185: Original If there are analogical changes in the inflectional paradigms of place names, non-local cases (including the nominative) are generally reformed after local…

Universal 201: Original No set of case marking elements are both independent morphemes and inseparable from the head noun. Standardized IF a relational marker (case,…

Universal 217: Original This hierarchy expresses the semantic naturalness for a lexically specified noun phrase to function as agent of a true transitive verb and…

Universal 233: Original Governors either follow or they precede their governees in all of the following constructions alike: (a) subject, object, and verb, (b) nominal…

Universal 249: Original Predicate hierarchy 1A:non-presentative ascriptive predications (Xi)loc > A > N > (Xi)poss. This hierarchy says that if a predication type at a…