Language Universals

Similarity and Diversity Across Languages

The various languages of the world are structured according to many different patterns of phonology, morphology, syntax, and
semantics.
In some languages, including French, Italian, and English, the basic structure of the clause is SVO, that is, the subject comes before
the verb, and the verb comes before the direct object. In languages such as Japanese and Persian, both the subject and the direct
object occur before the verb, in an SOV pattern.
There are basic principles that govern the structure of all languages. These language universals determine what is possible and
what is impossible in language structure. Language universals are statements of what is possible and impossible in languages
Why Uncover Universals?
The study of LU underscores the unity underlying the enormous variety of languages found in the world
LU are important to our understanding of the brain and of the principles that govern interpersonal communication in all
cultures. If basic principles govern all languages, they are likely to be the result of whatever cognitive and social skills
enabled human beings to develop the ability to speak in the first place
When postulating language universals, researchers must exercise caution because only relatively few of the worlds languages have
been adequately described. Further, much more is known about European languages and the major non-Western languages (such
as Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, and Arabic) than about the far more numerous other languages of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and
Oceania.
Linguists proposing language universals must ensure that the proposed principles are applicable to more than the
familiar European languages.
Since little or nothing is known about the structure of hundreds of languages, universal principles can be proposed only as tentative
hypotheses based on the languages for which descriptions are available.
Language Types
Language typology focuses on classifying languages according to their structural characteristics.
Language types are independent of language families in principle, but members of the same family often do share certain
typological characteristics as a result of their common heritage. Consequently, linguists include as many unrelated languages as
possible in their proposed language types to ensure that the similarities among languages of any category are not the result of
familial relationships.
Uncovering language universals and classifying languages into types are related and complementary tasks. In order to uncover
universal principles, we first need to know the extent to which languages differ from one another in terms of their structure.
It turns out that no language in the world has only nasal vowels. All languages must have oral vowels, whether or not they also have
nasal vowels. This suggests that oral vowels are in some sense more basic or more indispensable than nasal vowels, which could
be of great interest to our understanding of language structure. Therefore, this typology is useful, in that it has helped uncover a
language universal. Whether a particular typological classification is interesting or useful depends on whether it helps uncover
universal principles in the structure of languages.

Semantic Universals
Semantic universals govern the composition of the vocabulary of all languages. Colour terms, body part terms, animal names, and
verbs of sensory perception.
Semantic universals generally deal with the less marked members of semantic fields, which are called basic terms in this context
Basic terms have three characteristics:
1. Basic terms are morphologically simple.
2. Basic terms are less specialized in meaning than other terms.
3. Basic terms are not recently borrowed from another language.
Pronouns
All known language have pronouns for at least the speaker and the addressee: the first person (I, me) and the second person (you).

Language Universals
Some languages make finer distinctions in number. Speakers of ancient Sanskrit made a distinction between two people and more
than two people. The form for two people is called the dual, and the form for more than two is called the plural.
Other languages have a single pronoun to refer simultaneously to the speaker and the addressee (and sometimes other people)
and a separate pronoun to refer to the speaker along with other people but excluding the addressee. The first of these is called a
first person inclusive pronoun, and the second is called a first-person exclusive pronoun. In
English, both notions are encoded in we.
Fijian has one of the largest pronoun systems of any language. It has a singular form for each pronoun, a dual form for two people,
a separate trial form that refers to about three people, and a plural form that refers to more than three people (in actual usage, trial
pronouns refer to a few people and the plural refers to a multitude). In addition, in the first-person dual, trial, and plural, Fijian, like
Tok Pisin, has separate inclusive and exclusive forms.
All the worlds languages, however, have distinct first- and second-person pronouns, and most languages have third-person
pronouns, inclusive first-person pronouns, and exclusive first-person pronouns. A four-person system (inclusive first-person and
exclusive first-person, second-person, and third-person pronouns) is by far the most common.
The four-person pronoun system is thus somehow more basic than a two-person or threeperson type. In this respect, English is
atypical.
Some Universal Rules
1. All languages have at least first-person and second-person pronouns.
2. If a language has singular and dual forms, then it will also have plural forms.
3. If a language has singular, dual, and trial forms, then it will also have plural forms.
4. If a language makes an inclusive/exclusive distinction in its pronoun system, it will make it in the first person.

Phonological Universals
Vowel Systems
Different languages may have very different sets of vowels
Quechua has only 3 distinct vowels; along with the vowel systems of Greenlandic Eskimo and Moroccan Arabic, the Quechua vowel
system is one of the smallest in the world. Hawaiian has 5 vowels, a very common number among the worlds languages. At the
other end of the spectrum, English has 13 vowels and French has 15, including the four nasal vowels.
All languages have a high front unrounded vowel, a low vowel, and a high back rounded or unrounded vowel in their
phoneme inventory.
Of the languages that have four or more vowels, all have vowels similar to /i a u/ (as indicated by the first universal rule) plus
either a high central vowel /i/ (as in Russian vi- you) or a mid front unrounded vowel /e/ or //.
Languages with a five-vowel system include a mid front unrounded vowel.
Tendency: Languages with five or more vowels in their inventories generally have a mid back rounded vowel phoneme. (not
absolute).
Nasal and Oral Vowels
When a language has nasal vowels, the number of nasal vowels never exceeds the number of oral vowels.
The second universal rule of interest is not a rule in the usual sense but a description of the most common vowel system: a fivevowel system consisting of a high front unrounded vowel (/i/ or //), a mid front unrounded vowel (/e/ or //), a low vowel (/a/), a mid
back rounded vowel (/o/ or //), and a high back rounded vowel (/u/ or //).
Consonants
The consonant inventories of the languages of the world also exhibit many universal properties.

Language Universals
Most languages have the three stops /p t k/ in their consonant inventory. This universal suggests that these three consonants
are in some sense more basic than others. Not an absolute rule: Hawaiian has only /p/ and /k/.
No language has voiced stops without voiceless stops.

Syntactic and Morphological Universals

Word Order
In English and many other: S V O, but normal word order differs from language to language
Japanese, for examples, places S O V; or Tongan V S O
In English, there are variants to emphasize particular Noun Phrases (eg. Sewing I hate, but Ill do it). Similar word orders variants
are found in most languages.
We can say SVO is the basic order in English, and that it is an SVO language (also Romance languages, Thai, Vietnamese,
Indonesian.
Japanese is an SOV language (so are Turkish, Persian, Hindi)
Tongan is a VSO language (Polyneasian languages, Welsh)
Remarkably there are very few that follow the orders VOS, OVS or OSV.
In the three common configurations, S precedes O, in the uncommon configurations, S follows O.
There is an overwhelming tendency for the subject to precede the object.
Possesor and Possesed Noun Phrases
We find strikingly regular patterns:
Verb-Final languages:
possessor before possessed
Verb-Initial languages:
possessed before possessor
There is a strong tendency:
verb-initial languages -> prepositions
verb-final languages -> postpositions
Relative Clauses
They may precede or follow head nouns. In English they follow the head
There is a strong tendency:
verb-initial languages -> relative clauses after the head noun
verb-final languages -> relative clauses before the head noun
Overall Patterns of Ordering
In all the correlations, a patter emerges:
verb-initial languages -> the modifying element follows the modified element
verb-final languages -> the modifying element precedes the modified element

Language Universals
The patterns are based on tendencies rather than absolute rules. At each level, some languages violate the correlations.
Verb Medial languages (SVO) like English appear to follow no consistent pattern.
This patterns of verb-initial and verb-final languages, which apply to many languages whose speakers have never come in contact,
shows that some cognitive process shared by all human beings may underlie this ordering principle
Relativization Hierarchy
Another area of syntax with striking universal principles is the structure of relative clauses.
English can relativize the S of a relative clause, the DO, the IO, obliques and possessor noun phrases.

Other languages do not allow all these possibilities. Some allow relativization of some categories, but not others. Some even need
to use two clauses.
Some languages have relative clauses in which S or DO can be relativized, but not IO, obliques or possessors.
Relative clause formation in all languages is sensitive to a hierarchy of grammatical relations:

This hierarchy predicts that if a language allows a particular category on the hierarchy to be relativized, then the grammar of that
language will also allow all positions to the left to be relativized.

Types of Language Universals

LU are not all alike. There are ABSOLUTE UNIVERSAL and UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES.
The typology of vowel systems established earlier indicates that the minumum number of vowels in a language is three / i a u /. ->
Two universals are suggested: 1) all languages have at least 3 vowels and 2) if it only has 3 vowels, they will be /i a u/.
These rules are examples of absolute universals.
Other examples: if a language has a set of dual pronouns, it must have a ser of plural pronouns; if a lang has voiced stops, it must
have voiceless stops.
A number of universal rules have some exceptions. If a lang has a gap in its inventory of stops, it is likely to have a fricative with the
same place of articulation as the missing stop. Such rules are called UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES.
Implicational and Nonimplicational Universals
Another important distinction. Some U rules are in the form of a conditional implication. Eg. If a language has 5 vowels, it generally
has the vowel /o/; if a language is verb-final, then possessors are likely to precede possessed noun phrases.
All the ruls of form if condition P is satisfied, then conclusion Q holds are implicational.
Others can be stated without conditions, this are called nonimplicational U.

Language Universals
Explanations for Language Universals
This question is extremely complex, for many U are many hypotheses or at least educated guesses.
1. Original Language Hypothesis. All languages derive historically from the same original language. It is a hypothesis
difficult to support. Archaeological evidence strongly suggests that the ability to speak evolved at the same time in different
parts of the globe
2. Universals and Perception. LU are symptoms of how all humans perceive the world and conduct verbal interactions. Eg.
Vowels.
3. Aquisition and Processing Explanations. Some U have psychological explanations (not physiological). Some
explanations: the more regular structure, the easier for children to acquire it. Verb Initial languages exhibit a great deal of
regularity from one construction to another. Such a language would be easier to acquire.
4. Social Explanations. L is both cognitive and social. U of pronoun systems can be explained in terms of uses of language.
Why do all have 1st person and 2nd person singular pronouns? We must consider that the most basic type of interaction is
face2face. It is essential to refer efficiently to the speaker and adressee, the most importante entities involved in the
interaction.

LU, UG and Language Acquisition

Two strands of research
Chomsky: generative enterprise, characterizing UG that children learn
Greenberg: looked at scores of languages in search of universal properties, it highlighted the facts about universals and
went a long way towared characterizing them.
The two strands have begun to converge.
The nature vs. nurture debate extends to the topic of language acquisition. Today, most researchers acknowledge that both nature
and nurture play a role in language acquisition. However, some researchers emphasize the influences of learning on language
acquisition, while others emphasize the biological influences.
Biological Influences on Language Acquisition
The main proponent of the view that biological influences bring about language development is Chomsky. He argues that human
brains have a language acquisition device (LAD), an innate mechanism or process that allows children to develop language skills.
According to this view, all children are born with a universal grammar, which makes them receptive to the common features of all
languages. Because of this hard-wired background in grammar, children easily pick up a language when they are exposed to its
particular grammar.
Evidence for an innate human capacity to acquire language skills comes from the following observations:
The stages of language development occur at about the same ages in most children, even though different children
experience very different environments.
Childrens language development follows a similar pattern across cultures.
Children generally acquire language skills quickly and effortlessly.
Deaf children who have not been exposed to a language may make up their own language. These new languages
resemble each other in sentence structure, even when they are created in different cultures.

Flavia Pacheco Natalia Ronconi