Category: Universals Archive

Universal 375: Original In all languages, an expression which refers to the topic of a sentence is typically definite or generic. Standardized IF an expression…

Universal 391: associative Plural ⇒ basic Plural Original If a language has a group plural, it also has a basic plural. Standardized IF there is…

Universal 407: (person marker (possessee) = person marker (INTR)) ⇒ (person marker (possessee) = person marker (TR)) Original If person marking in possessed nouns and…

Universal 423: Prep ⇒ (¬ SOV ⇒ N Rel) Original If a language has Prep word order, then if the verb position is not SOV,…

Universal 439: non-accusative alignment ⇒ verb-initial Original Non-accusative alignment may be associated with verb-initial order. Standardized IF alignment is non-accusative, THEN there will be verb-initial…

Universal 455: Original An inalienably possessed, non-vocative noun does not necessarily imply that the corresponding vocative noun is inalienably possessed. Standardized IF a noun is…

Universal 471: ergative/nominative (3 person &, V Dem) ⇒ ergative/nominative (noun) Original If in a language personal and/or demonstrative pronouns of the 3rd person have…

Universal 487: long affricates ⇒ long stop ⇒ long fricative Original The presence of long affricates implies the presence of long stops. Further, in all…

Universal 503: discontinuous affixes ⇒ prefixes &, V. suffixes Original If a language has discontinuous affixes, it always has either prefixing or suffixing or both.…

Universal 519: case marking is ergative > verb agreement is ergative > relativization is ergative > coreferential deletion in purposive constructions is ergative > conjunction…