Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1416: Original No language has reflexive relative pronouns. Standardized No language has reflexive relative pronouns. Keywords relative, pronoun, coreference Domain syntax Type unconditional Status…

Universal 1432: Original If in a language the perfect lacks auxiliary verb, then the auxiliary verb does not have present tense form. Standardized IF there…

Universal 1448: Original In an overwhelming majority of languages, if the metaperson ‘hearer’ in the singular is not the only meaning expressed by some pronominal…

Universal 1464: Original In an overwhelming majority of languages, if the metapersons ‘speaker + hearer(s)’ and ‘speaker + hearer(s) + non-participant(s)’ are not the only…

Universal 1480: Original If a language has a special form with the meaning ‘speaker + non-participant(s)’ (i.e. “we exclusive”) then it has a special form…

Universal 1496: Original The upper limb, ‘arm’ (and ‘hand’) is named by a distinct term in all languages. Standardized The upper limb, ‘arm’ (and ‘hand’)…

Universal 1512: OS ⇒ #V Original Subject-final languages are always verb-initial. Standardized IF full noun phrase subjects must follow full noun phrase direct objects, THEN…

Universal 1528: OS ⇒ passive Original All subject-final languages have passive forms of verbs (ones in which the object of the active verb functions as…

Universal 1544: verb-initial ⇒ verbal case-marking Original In verb-initial languages, verbal case marking is attested to a very significant degree. Standardized IF word order is…

Universal 1560: verb-initial ⇒ no verb agreement V. agreement with two noun phrases Original With possibly greater than chance frequency, the verb in verb-initial languages…