Month: May 2020

Universal 125: Original If a language has both SOV in a full sentence and determining N+determined N in a Noun Phrase, then it has at…

Universal 124: Original IF there are aspirated stops (especially voiceless labial and alveolar), THEN there is /h/. Standardized IF there are aspirated stops (especially voiceless…

Universal 123: Original In some languages objects [sic] — whether objects of transitive or subjects of intransitive sentences — may be alternatively marked by an…

Universal 122: Original If in a language the same verbal meaning is expressible either through a construction where a complement of the verb is in…

Universal 121: Prep ⇒ (N Num ⇒ N Rel) Original If a language is prepositional, then if the numeral follows the noun, the relative clause…

Universal 120: Original If NP-internal constituents agree in more than two categories, the maximum being four, those will always include number and gender and very…

Universal 119: Original If NP-internal constituents agree in two categories these will most likely be number and gender or number and person, depending on whether…

Universal 118: Original If in a language, in a sentence the verb agrees with the noun in an oblique case and there is a noun…

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 116: case ⇒ number Original … number is, as has been seen, closer to the stem and generally present when case is present, while…