Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1135: Original If the dual extends to all number-inflecting personal pronouns and nouns, its conception will be that of a duo-paucal rather than of…

Universal 1151: VO ⇒ result predicates are V-adjacent or at the end of the VP;OV ⇒ V-adjacent result predicates Original In VO languages, result predicates…

Universal 1167: Original Markers on the verb or adjective are never the sole markers of definiteness, in any given context (except perhaps in Latvian), their…

Universal 1183: OS ⇒ #V Original Basic word orders OSV and OVS do not occur at all, while SVO, SOV, VSO, and VOS are all…

Universal 1199: Original Every natural language has syntactic constituents (called noun-phrases) whose semantic function is to express generalized quantifiers over the domain of discourse. Standardized…

Universal 1215: Original Nouns denoting body parts are the preferred sources for the grammaticalization of local adpositions. Standardized Nouns denoting body parts are the preferred…

Universal 1231: Original Diachronically, when an allative loses its local meaning (or acquires additional, non-local meanings), it will become a dative (expressing beneficiary and/or indirect…

Universal 1247: Original If tone spreading takes place from a mid tone into a following low, then tone spreading also takes place from a high…

Universal 1263: assimilation of vowels with normal duration ⇒ assimilation of reduced vowels Original Assimilation of vowels with normal duration implies assimilation of reduced vowels…

Universal 1279: Original If the indirect object is marked in the prototype bitransitive clause, it is also marked in a non-prototype bitransitive clause. Standardized IF…