Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1482: Original If a language has a special form with the meaning ‘hearers’ and/or ‘hearer(s) + non-participant(s)’, then it has a special form with…

Universal 1498: Original A hierarchy of grammaticalization from verb to complementizer to adverbial conjunction.If a language uses the morpheme at a given level on the…

Universal 1514: OS ⇒ no verb agreement V. agreement with two noun phrases Original If a language is subject-final then either transitive verbs of unmarked…

Universal 1530: OS ⇒ ¬ overt copula Original Subject-final languages generally do not have overt copulas. Standardized IF subject full noun phrases follow object full…

Universal 1546: Original In verb-initial languages, there is probably less agreement of adjectives with common nouns than in verb-final languages, especially case agreement. Standardized The…

Universal 1562: Rel N ⇒ ¬ relative pronouns;N Rel & strict verb-initial ⇒ ¬ relative pronouns Original There are no relative pronouns (i.e., no strong…

Universal 1578: Original If both the reflexive marker and the causative marker in a language are affixes, both are: (a) either prefixes (cf. Abkhaz, Amharic,…

Universal 1594: body part /body parts > artefacts Original There will be no language in which the linguistic distance between possessor and possessum is greater…

Universal 1610: Original In languages with verb agreement, patient verb agreement appears more frequently in verb-peripheral languages [i.e. verb-initial and verb-final languages] than in verb-medial…

Universal 1626: Original There is no language where the double object causative would be the only possible causative construction. Standardized IF there is a double…