Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1230: Original Diachronically, an undifferentiated locative (expressing where, whereto, wherefrom) retains the meaning of a where case when ‘whereto’ and ‘wherefrom’ cases are being…

Universal 1246: Original … if syllables containing sequences of n consonants in a language are to be found as syllabic types, then sequences of n-1…

Universal 1262: assimilation of fully voiced vowels ⇒ assimilation of partially voiced vowels V assimilation with voiceless vowels Original Assimilation of fully voiced vowels implies…

Universal 1278: Original If the direct object is marked in the bitransitive clause, it is also marked in the unitransitive clause. Standardized IF the direct…

Universal 1294: dative &, V locative resultative ⇒ objective resultative Original If in a language there is dative and/or locative resultative, then there is objective…

Universal 1310: Original Valence affixes on verb (i.e. intransitive/transitive/ditransitive affixes), if there are any, are suffixed with more than chance frequency. Standardized IF there are…

Universal 1326: Original In every human language, redundancy, measured in phonological terms, hovers near 50%. Standardized In every human language, redundancy, measured in phonological terms,…

Universal 1342: Original If a language has dominant SOV order and the genitive follows the governing noun and the language has a parts-of-speech system of…

Universal 1358: Original If a serialized multiplicand is a factor in some product in which the multiplier is larger than the multiplicand, it is also…

Universal 1374: gap in complex NP ⇒ gap in finite subordinate clause ⇒ gap in infinitival phrase Original Clause embedding hierarchy: S[…VP’[ … Oi …]…