Month: May 2020

Universal 265: Original Active languages are characterized by dividing nouns into active (“animate”) and inactive (“inanimate”) classes and by the corresponding principle of dividing verbs…

Universal 264: Original On the lexical level frequentalia of active languages are as follows: the inactive noun class is often subdivided into groups according to…

Universal 263: Original Among the morphological frequentalia of ergativity one may mention: the morphological category of words that are syntactically connected with nouns (verbs, adjectives,…

Universal 262: Original Among the lexical frequentalia of ergativity one can mention: Classes of possessive and affective verbs (verba habendi and verba sentiendi), forming special…

Universal 261: ergative language ⇒ ObjectSubject markers Original In ergative languages personal verb affixes are arranged such that the object marker almost always precedes the…

Universal 260: ergative language ⇒ prefix-suffixal personal conjugation Original In ergative languages personal conjugation is of prefixal or prefix-suffixal nature. Standardized IF alignment is predominantly…

Universal 259: primary topicalization ⇒ accusative alignment Original In ergative and active languages only secondary topicalization, by means of changing the word order in the…

Universal 258: Original In ergative languages the subject is characterized by its autonomous position in the sentence:first of all, subject and predicate are in marginal…

Universal 257: Original Among the most important morphological implications of the active languages are the following: diathesis of the active verb differentiates between centrifugal and…

Universal 256: gender (noun) ⇒ the same gender (pronoun) Original If there exists a regular gender (nominal class) distinction in a language, this distinction is…