Category: Universals Archive

Universal 2021: Original (i) In all languages, people can describe cognitively based feelings via observable bodily “symptoms” (that is, via some bodily events regarded as…

Universal 5: SOV & N Gen ⇒ N Adj Original If a language has dominant SOV order and the genitive follows the governing noun, then…

Universal 21: SA with non-possessor case ⇒ SA with possessor case Original In almost all languages if the internal case involved in Suffixaufnahme is a…

Universal 37: Original If Suffixaufnahme is historically preceded by a different construction, one possibility for that construction is to involve a pronoun-like constituent. This constituent…

Universal 53: Original In the construction of possessive attribution, only the possessor may agree in case with the possessum, while only the possessum may agree…

Universal 69: Prep ⇒ (N A ⇒ N G) Original If a language has Prep word order, then if the adjective follows the noun, the…

Universal 85: Original The non-null set of agreeing non-subjects of any language includes some or all direct objects; or in other words, if in a…

Universal 101: N Poss ⇒ N A;equivalently: A N ⇒ Poss N Original If the possessive adjective follows the noun, then the descriptive adjective follows…

Universal 117: Original In languages with a distinction between active (animate) vs. passive (inanimate) nouns, passive nouns don’t distinguish numbers (SG/PL). Standardized IF nouns are…

Universal 133: Original It is relatively unusual for languages (in ANCs) to combine sentential dependent-marking for the S with non-sentential marking for the A or…