Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1983: Original If an Ex or Cop is grammatically unique, i.e., lacks criterial features of any major word class in the language, it will…

Universal 1999: Original For the simple cardinal numerals, as their arithmetical value increases, so the possibility of agreement in gender decreases. There is a widespread…

Universal 2015: Original All languages have a word for FEEL, undifferentiated between “bodily feelings” (sensations) and “cognitively based” feelings (“emotions”), and distinct from THINK. Standardized…

Universal 15: OV ⇒ V Neg & V Caus & V Refl & V Recipr; VO ⇒ Neg V & Caus V & Refl V…

Universal 31: Suffixaufnahme with nominals ⇒ other attributive constructions Original If a language has Suffixaufnahme, it also has other NP-internal attributive constituents showing agreement in…

Universal 47: Original Nominal predicate complements are more likely than adjectival and participial predicate complements not to agree in case with the noun phrase (NP)…

Universal 63: Original When the adjective follows the noun, the adjective expresses all the inflectional categories of the noun. In such cases the noun may…

Universal 79: Original Only languages in which passivization involves (a) the complete assumption of the coding properties of the subject by the promoted object (and…

Universal 95: Postp ⇒ ((A N v Rel N ⇒ Dem N & Num N) & (Dem N v Num N) ⇒ G N)) Original…

Universal 111: V Adv ⇒ N Adj Original For most languages, if V Adv, then N Adj. Standardized IF verbs precede adverbs, THEN nouns precede…