Category: Universals Archive

Universal 728: Original Vowels on rising tones are longer than those on falling tones, other things being equal. Standardized IF a vowel is on a…

Universal 744: Original The Nominal-Switch Universal (part 1):In cases where a nominal Nominal/Locational-switch is motivated by conditions of Time-Stability, the nominal strategy will encode the…

Universal 760: Original … palatal noninjective stops have a strong tendency to be replaced by alveopalatal affricates. Standardized Palatal noninjective stops have a strong tendency…

Universal 776: /h/ ⇒ primary fricative Original A language is very unlikely to have /h/ unless it also has a primary fricative. Standardized IF there…

Universal 792: secondary nasal consonant ⇒ primary nasal consonant Original No language has Secondary Nasal Consonants unless it has one or more Primary Nasal Consonants.…

Universal 808: fricative ⇒ stop Original In the linguistic systems of the world, fricatives cannot exist unless stops exist as well. Standardized IF there are…

Universal 824: initial relative pronoun (RelCl) ⇒ ¬personal pronoun of the same NP Original If a relative clause contains an initial relative pronoun, it does…

Universal 840: Original Every initial of final sequence of length m contains at least one continuous subsequence of length m – 1. Standardized IF there…

Universal 856: Original No combination of a voiced and glottalized consonant is found in either initial or final clusters. Standardized A voiced and glottalized consonant…

Universal 872: Original In initial and final clusters, an unvoiced sonant is never immediately preceded or followed by another unvoiced sonant. Standardized In initial and…