Category: Universals Archive

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…

Universal 1048: SOV ⇒ ¬preclitics;VSO ⇒ ¬postclitic question markers Original If word order is SOV, then there are no preclitics.If word order is VSO, then…

Universal 1064: Original Languages often have mechanisms to remove stress from final position, often putting it in penultimate position; but there is no corresponding tendency…

Universal 1080: Original Duration of aspiration varies according to place of articulation: k > t > p. Standardized Duration of aspiration varies according to place…

Universal 1096: Original There is an overall distinction between Type A and B languages, with the following correlations (i.e. mutual implications) of opposite properties defining…

Universal 1112: ¬ subject raising ⇒ ¬ full passive Original Subject Raising Constraint:No argument of an object complement sentence can be raised into subject position.Any…