Category: Universals Archive

Universal 274: Original If by means of reduplication a decrease of quantity or degree may be expressed in a language, there are cases in that…

Universal 290: ezâfe ⇒ possessive declension V pronominal enclitics Original If there are ezâfe constructions, then there is possessive declension or there are pronominal enclitics…

Universal 306: Original In the majority of languages verbal forms of the passive voice morphologically are not more complex than forms of the active voice.…

Universal 322: ergative (nouns) ⇒ non-zero allomorphs Original If nouns have a syntactic form of the ergative, then at least some of its allomorphs are…

Universal 338: Original If the verb agrees with subject and object and there are confix-forms such as o-V-s-o, then there are o-V-s forms as well.…

Universal 354: (s-V-o) & ¬(o-V-s) ⇒ verb-initial Original In the languages where the verb agrees with subject and object, if there are forms like s-V-o,…

Universal 370: vowel harmony ⇒ OV; umlaut ⇒ VO Original If a language has vowel harmony and perhaps other progressive phonological modifications, then basic word…

Universal 386: inflection (noun) ⇒ inflection (verb) Original If a language has nominal inflection, it also has verbal inflection. Standardized IF there is nominal inflection,…

Universal 402: cumulation (noun) ⇒ cumulation (pronoun) Original If in a language there is any cumulative expression in a nominal paradigm, there will be cumulative…

Universal 418: verb agreement (adverbial constituent) ⇒ verb agreement (non-adverbial constituent) Original There is no language which includes sentences where the verb agrees with an…