Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1828: Original Standardized IF there is a prenasalized labialized voiced velar stop, THEN there is also a prenasalized voiced velar stop. Keywords stop, velar,…

Universal 1844: Original Standardized IF there is a breathy voice bilabial stop, THEN there is also a voiceless aspirated bilabial stop. Keywords stop, bilabial, aspirated,…

Universal 1860: Original The liquids tend to become devoiced in the final and also in the initial position. They further become spirantized especially in the…

Universal 1876: Original In the coding of subordination, elimination of Tense/Aspect/Mood distinctions takes place when the other phenomena (like agreement elimination, case/adposition marking, possessor/oblique coding…

Universal 1892: Original No lexical item that is not a noun can belong to the class of properties borrowed from a language unless this class…

Universal 1908: Original If in a language the grammatical expression of predicative possession requires the use of the marker of either comitative or instrumental, then…

Universal 1924: Original If a language has two modifier constructions that differ in linear order and in linguistic distance, the construction with a prenominal modifier…

Universal 1940: Original The use of all other processes of nominal derivation and inflection (namely internal modification, suprasegmental processes, subtraction, conversion, suppletion), with the exception…

Universal 1956: Original In isolierenden Sprachen werden alle Wurzeln gleichwertig behandelt. Man kann es der Wurzel nicht einmal ansehen, ob sie nominalen oder verbalen Charakter…

Universal 1972: Original An existential or copulative element tends to be omitted more often in a construction which involves a full predication such as a…