Category: Universals Archive

Universal 822: correlative ⇒ verb-final; Original Correlatives are limited to verb-final languages, and in fact, are largely limited to “loose” verb-final ones, namely which permit…

Universal 838: Rel N ⇒ ¬ clause-initial marker Original In prenominal relative clauses there is never an obligatory clause-initial marker. (There may or may not…

Universal 854: Original In final clusterss a voiced stop is only followed immediately by a stop differing only in being unvoiced if there is a…

Universal 870: Original In initial clusters, the existence of at least one sequence consisting of voiced obstruent + semivowel implies the existence of at least…

Universal 886: back unrounded vowel ⇒ front unrounded vowel Original A back unrounded vowel implies a front unrounded vowel at the same tongue height. Standardized…

Universal 902: omnisyllabic tone ⇒ monosyllabic morphemes Original There appears to be a necessary connection between omnisyllabic tone and monosyllabic morphemes. Standardized IF tone is…

Universal 918: /f/ ⇒ /w-v/ Original The presence of the voiceless labial fricative phoneme /f/ in a system presupposes the simultaneous presence of the voiced…

Universal 934: Original Only high vowels undergo consonantalization. Standardized IF a vowel undergoes consonantalization, THEN it must be a high one. Keywords vowel, consonantalization, syllabic,…

Universal 950: Original If direct and indirect/non-direct objects are distinguished in their coding, then they also differ in their syntactic behaviour (but not necessarily the…

Universal 966: O V ⇒ N PluralWord;V O ⇒ PluralWord N Original Plural words tend to follow the noun in OV languages and precede in…