Month: May 2020

Universal 1435: ¬ aspect ⇒ continuous tense Original There is a correlation between the development of continuous tenses and absence of aspect differentiation. Standardized IF…

Universal 1434: many tenses ⇒ ¬ aspect Original A large number of tense oppositions correlates with the absence of aspect differentiation. Standardized IF there are…

Universal 1433: perfect ⇒ plusquamperfect Original The presence of the perfect almost always implies the presence of the plusquamperfect. Standardized IF there is perfect, THEN…

Universal 1432: Original If in a language the perfect lacks auxiliary verb, then the auxiliary verb does not have present tense form. Standardized IF there…

Universal 1431: Original The more developed a case system is, the less is its system of verbal tenses. Standardized IF there is a highly developed…

Universal 1430: possessive suffixes on nouns ⇒ ¬ (overt copula form (of “to be”) in the present tense) Original If a language has possessive suffixes…

Universal 1429: (agglutinative morphology ⇒)¬ gender ⇒ categorial markers with hydronyms Original If a language lacks the category of gender, then hydronyms always contain categorial…

Universal 1428: ¬ preverb ⇒ verb bases denoting direction Original If a language lacks preverbs, it must have special verb bases denoting direction. Standardized IF…

Universal 1427: ¬prefix ⇒ ¬preposition; ¬prefix ⇒ inflectional local cases;prepositions ⇒ prefixes Original If in a language there are no prefixes, then there will be…

Universal 1426: OV ⇒ Subordinate-Main;VO ⇒ Subordinate-Main & Main-Subordinate; OV/VO ⇒ Subordinate-Main & Main-Subordinate Original In the majority of OV languages, adverbial clause always precede…