Category: Universals Archive

Universal 244: Original Inflectional systems either have all three of the following properties or none of them: (i) inflectional exponents are intimately joined to the…

Universal 260: ergative language ⇒ prefix-suffixal personal conjugation Original In ergative languages personal conjugation is of prefixal or prefix-suffixal nature. Standardized IF alignment is predominantly…

Universal 276: number (adjective V verb) ⇒ number (noun) Original If there is a regular number distinction in the forms of the adjective or of…

Universal 292: verb agreement (OBL) ⇒ verb agreement (DO) Original In all languages: if the verb agrees with the oblique object, it agrees with the…

Universal 308: Original If active and passive voices differ from each other in nominal actants form, they differ in verb form as well. Standardized IF…

Universal 324: Original If the verb agrees with subject and object and there are forms with the following arrangement of agreement affixes: s-o-V and s-V-o,…

Universal 340: Original If in a conjugation there are confixes, then at least some of them designate subject and/or object in plural.The same holds for…

Universal 356: Original In the languages where the verb agrees with subject and object, if forms like V-s are the only possible ones, then the…

Universal 372: agglutinative ⇒ simple syllabic structure;flexive ⇒ complex syllabic structure Original There is a positive correlation between agglutinative morphology and simple syllable structure (or…

Universal 388: agglutinative ⇔ ¬ gender inflection Original Languages without inflectional gender are agglutinating, and vice versa. Standardized IF there is no inflectional gender, THEN…