Category: Universals Archive

Universal 449: Gen N (nominally possessed construction) ⇒ Gen Pro (pronominal construction) Original A Gen N constituent order in a nominally possessed construction implies the…

Universal 465: Original With more than chance frequency, in sentences meaning ‘a person/thing belongs to a certain group of persons/things’ (like ‘Socrates is Greek’), the…

Universal 481: progressive aspect is signalled by a suffix ⇒ tense & mood & person suffixes follow progressive aspect suffix Original If progressive is signaled…

Universal 497: VSO => initial interrogative word;SOV ⇒ ¬initial interrogative word Original If a language has dominant order VSO in declarative sentences, it always puts…

Universal 513: gender ⇒ number Original If a language has the category of gender, it always has the category of number. Standardized IF there is…

Universal 529: Original No number is ever expressed in any numeral system by means of a function any of whose arguments is ≥ L. Standardized…

Universal 545: Original The degree of morphological fusion varies inversely with the size of the numerical value. Standardized The degree of morphological fusion varies inversely…

Universal 561: Du (non-pronominal agreement forms) ⇒ Du (personal pronoun & noun) Original If the dual extends to non-pronominal agreement forms, it also extends to…

Universal 577: Original If any inflectional category is expressed through suppletion in nouns, it is also expressed suppletively in pronouns or verbs. Standardized IF any…

Universal 593: Original In all languages, there are some utterances where simultaneity of morphemes symbolizes semantic relatedness. (Cf. the placement of meaning-bearing suprasegmental features). Standardized…