Category: Universals Archive

Universal 888: O V ⇒ moraic-counting;V O ⇒ syllable counting Original OV languages are often mora-counting, and VO languages are syllable-counting. Standardized IF basic order…

Universal 904: Original If noun phrases take case marking when occurring in core relations governed by verbs and other lexical expressions, they will also do…

Universal 920: /p/ ⇒ /f/ Original The absence of the voiceless stop /p/ from the labial group presupposes the presence of the corresponding voiceless fricative…

Universal 936: Original Secondary nasal consonants are, apart from borrowing and analogical formations, always the result of diachronic developments from clusters. Standardized Secondary nasal consonants…

Universal 952: Original If direct and indirect/non-direct objects differ in their overt coding of whatever kind (at least minimally), then they will also differ in…

Universal 968: Original The decision whether the governor (head) or the governee (dependent) is morphologically marked tends to be made uniformly for all pairs of…

Universal 984: separative comparative ⇒ absolute anterior consecutive deranking & total identity deletion Original Languages with a separative comparative are languages with absolute anterior consecutive…

Universal 1000: Original In patterned symbolic processes (particularly distance symbolism), vowel ablaut has the highest frequency of occurrence and most random language distribution both geographically…

Universal 1016: Original If there are analogical changes in their inflectional paradigms, the forms (stems and affixes) of the present replace more likely the forms…

Universal 1032: Original Morphemically simple phonological words never have more than one main stress. Standardized Morphemically simple phonological words never have more than one main…