Category: Universals Archive

Universal 428: Original All types of predicate constituents do not agree alike with polite plural pronoun subjects; if the referent of the polite, formally plural…

Universal 444: agglutinative ⇒ complement-balancing & complement-deranking;flexive ⇒ complement-balancing Original Agglutinating languages can be complement-balancing and complement-deranking, while fusional languages are complement-balancing. Standardized IF morphologyis…

Universal 460: Original In a language, all (or almost all) verbs with the general meaning ‘to create’ or ‘to destroy’ are transitive verbs according to…

Universal 476: Original There are never more tense distinctions in progressive than in non-progressive. Standardized IF there are tense distinctions in progressive, THEN there will…

Universal 492: Original When a yes-no question is differentiated from the corresponding assertion by an intonational pattern, the distinctive intonational features of each of these…

Universal 508: verb agreement in gender (subject V object) ⇒ adjective agreement in gender (noun) Original If the verb agrees either with the subject or…

Universal 524: Original In more than one language, and possibly in all, if the adnominal demonstrative co-occurs with a definite article that is in construction…

Universal 540: Original In numeral systems with simple lexical representation, there is the following correlation: These simplest systems parallel that of number in the noun.…

Universal 556: Original Where there are contrasting forms for the absolute and contextual uses of cardinal numbers, there is always neutralization for some numerals, in…

Universal 572: obligatory (in)definiteness marking ⇒ obligatory plural marking (noun) Original If a language has obligatory marking of (in)definiteness, then it has obligatory marking of…