Category: Universals Archive

Universal 251: rigid language & ¬manner adverb ⇒ ¬predicative use (nominal & possessive) Original All rigid languages for which the class of manner adverbs is…

Universal 267: reduplication ⇒ it expresses ‘change of quantity or degree’ Original If in a language reduplication (full or partial) exists as a productive grammatical…

Universal 283: palatovelar ⇒ dental Original It is apparently a universal fact, then, that palatoalveolar sounds develop in child language only after dental sounds. Standardized…

Universal 299: Original All languages use reduplication as a productive grammatical way of word formation and inflection. Standardized Reduplication is used as a productive grammatical…

Universal 315: Original If and only if a language has a syntactic form of the subjective*, it has a syntactic form of the accusative*. Standardized…

Universal 331: Original If the prefix position is the only possible one for a subject-affix, then the object-affix also occupies this position in all forms…

Universal 347: Original If VS order is not recessive, neither is VO order. Standardized IF VS order is not recessive, THEN VO order is not…

Universal 363: flexive V introflexive ⇒ 2-3 syllable long words; agglutinative V incorporating ⇒ longer than 2-3-syllable words; isolating ⇒ shorter than 2-3 syllable words.…

Universal 379: Original Every language has cleft constructions, either wh-clefts or it-clefts or both. Standardized Every language has cleft constructions, either wh-clefts or it-clefts or…

Universal 395: participles ⇒ nominalized verb forms Original If a language has a morphological means to indicate verbal modification (i.e., if a language has participles),…