Category: Universals Archive

Universal 1732: Original The definite article never carries more gender, number, and/or case inflection in adnominal use than it does in pronominal use. Standardized IF…

Universal 1748: Original If there are synonyms for an ordinal numeral, then there are also synonyms for ordinals for all lower numbers. Standardized IF there…

Universal 1764: Original The basic direction of merging of the consonant endings is unmistakable: invariably from the front to the back. Standardized IF back and…

Universal 1780: Original If a language has fricative + stop onset clusters, then it has stop + fricative onset clusters. Standardized IF there are fricative…

Universal 1796: Original In preconsonantal position distinctive nasalization develops preferentially before continuants. Standardized In preconsonantal position distinctive nasalization develops preferentially before continuants. Keywords nasalization, preconsonantal,…

Universal 1812: Original The presence of a voiceless dental-alveolar sibilant ejective affricate [”ts‘”] in a language implies the presence of a voiceless velar ejective stop…

Universal 1828: Original Standardized IF there is a prenasalized labialized voiced velar stop, THEN there is also a prenasalized voiced velar stop. Keywords stop, velar,…

Universal 1844: Original Standardized IF there is a breathy voice bilabial stop, THEN there is also a voiceless aspirated bilabial stop. Keywords stop, bilabial, aspirated,…

Universal 1860: Original The liquids tend to become devoiced in the final and also in the initial position. They further become spirantized especially in the…

Universal 1876: Original In the coding of subordination, elimination of Tense/Aspect/Mood distinctions takes place when the other phenomena (like agreement elimination, case/adposition marking, possessor/oblique coding…