Language Universal

Universal in linguistics — one of the most important concepts of typology, a property inherent in all or the overwhelming majority of natural languages. The development of the theory of universals is often associated with the name of Joseph Greenberg, although similar ideas were put forward in linguistics long before him.

Types of universals

Universals are classified according to several criteria.

• Absolute universals (those inherent in all known languages, for example: every natural language has vowels and consonants) are opposed to statistical universals (tendencies). An example of a statistical universal: almost all languages have nasal consonants (however, in some languages of West Africa nasal consonants are not separate phonemes but allophones of oral stops in the context of nasal consonants). Adjoining the statistical universals are the so-called frequentalia — phenomena occurring in the languages of the world fairly often (with a probability exceeding chance).

• Absolute universals are also contrasted with implicational (complex) universals, that is, ones which assert a connection between two classes of phenomena. For example, if a language has a dual number, it also has a plural number. A special case of implicational universals are hierarchies, which can be represented as a set of "two-term" implicational universals . Such, for example, is the Keenan–Comrie hierarchy (the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy, which regulates, among other things, the accessibility of arguments for relativization ):

Subject > Direct object > Indirect object > Oblique object > Possessor > Object of comparison

According to Keenan and Comrie, the set of elements accessible for relativization by some means covers a continuous segment of this hierarchy.

Other examples of hierarchies are the Silverstein hierarchy (animacy hierarchy) and the hierarchy of argument types accessible for reflexivization

Implicational universals can be either one-directional (X → Y) or bidirectional (X ↔ Y). For example, SOV word order is usually associated with the presence of postpositions in a language, and conversely, most postpositional languages have SOV word order.

• Also contrasted are deductive (obligatory for all languages) and inductive (common to all known languages) universals .

Universals and levels of language

Universals are identified at all levels of language. Thus, in phonology a certain number of absolute universals are known (often concerning the inventory of segments), and a number of universal properties are also identified in morphology. The study of universals has become most widespread in syntax and semantics.

The study of syntactic universals is associated above all with the name of Joseph Greenberg, who identified a number of significant properties related to word order (see en:Greenberg's linguistic universals). In addition, the existence of universals within the framework of many linguistic theories is regarded as confirmation of the existence of a universal grammar; the study of universals was also pursued by the theory of principles and parameters .

Within semantic research, the theory of universals has led, in particular, to the creation of various approaches based on the notion of a universal semantic metalanguage, primarily within the framework of the works of Anna Wierzbicka.

Linguistics also studies universals within the framework of diachronic research. Thus, for example, it is known that the historical shift [ki] → [tʃi] is possible, but the reverse is not. Numerous universal properties have been identified relating to the historical development of the semantics of morphological categories (in particular, within the framework of the semantic map method).

Universals and universal grammar

Within generative grammar, the existence of universals is often regarded as evidence of the existence of a special universal grammar, whereas functional approaches associate them rather with general features of the human cognitive apparatus. Thus, for example, a well-known work by J. Hawkins shows a connection between the so-called "branching parameter" and features of human perception.

See also

• Structural linguistics
• Language system
• Universal grammar