Category: Universals Archive

Universal 979: Original Irregular plural formation is more likely to occur with nouns high in the split plurality hierarchy. Standardized IF nouns low on the…

Universal 995: posterior consecutive deranking & SVO ⇒ conditional deranking Original If a language has posterior consecutive deranking and its word order is SVO, then…

Universal 1011: peripheral affricates ⇒ medial affricates Original Peripheral affricates imply medial affricates. Standardized IF there are peripheral affricates, THEN there are medial affricates. Keywords…

Universal 1027: VO ⇔ non-tensedness ⇔ non-casedness ⇔ WITH-construction ⇔ non-absolute converb Original There are correlations between following parameters:VO word order, Non-tensedness, Non-casedness, WITH-Construction, Non-Absolute…

Universal 1043: Original When there are limitations regarding the number of long vowels in a word, they invariably involve end and/or initial reckoning. Standardized When…

Universal 1059: Original If NP-internal constituents agree in only a single category, this will not be Definiteness; it will most likely be Number. Standardized Whenever…

Universal 1075: Original If case, and especially genitive, is marked (enclitically) at the end of NPs, then word order is mainly SOV, NP Postposition, Genitive…

Universal 1091: Original If there are X stop and affricate positions, then the number of nasal positions will not exceed X. Standardized IF there are…

Universal 1107: topic possessive ⇒ backgrounding of simultaneous sequences Original If a language has a Topic Possessive, that language will have backgrounding of simultaneous sequences.…

Universal 1123: Original If nouns for alienable possession can incorporate their possessive pronouns, then nouns for inalienable possession can too. Standardized IF nouns for alienable…