Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1889: Original The relation of the retroflex to the dental consonants proves to be a mere variety of the opposition of pharyngealized and non-pharyngealized…

Universal 1905: Original Languages with syntactic relations usually use diathesis changes (voices) that promote and /or demote NPs in the clause, while languages without syntactic…

Universal 1921: Original It seems that all languages with subjunctive complements can use subjunctives as main clauses (though the reverse may not be true). Standardized…

Universal 1937: Original If there is a word-form loan of a personal indefinite in a language, then there is a word-form loan of an temporal…

Universal 1953: Original Wo nun der Druckakzent eine feste Stelle erhält, hat er oft zur Folge, daß die Vokale der nichtbetonten Silben flüchtig gesprochen werden…

Universal 1969: Original There is a tendency for the existential, copulative, and verb-category carrying dummy elements of a language (a) synchronically to interpenetrate in complex…

Universal 1985: Original The negative of past tense forms of Ex and/or Cop tends to be more regular in formation than the present-tense negative. Standardized…

Universal 2001: Original It appears likely that there are generalizations [concerning “neutral agreement”] of the type “if infinitive phrases are are non-prototypical then so are…

Universal 2017: Original All languages have words comparable, though not necessarily identical in meaning, with cry and smile; that is words referring to bodily expression…

Universal 3: ergative alignment ⇒ also accusative alignment Original Grammatical systems with ergativity tend to have ergative-accusative splits. Standardized IF alignment is ergative for some…