Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
universal [Lat. universalis ‘having general application’] (also language universal)
Grammatical universals are properties (or hypotheses about such properties) which are common to all human languages. According to Greenberg (1966), the following formal and logical typology of universals can be postulated: (a) unrestricted universals (e.g. every language has vowels); (b) unidirectional implications between two properties (e.g. if a language has a dual in its number system, then it also has a plural, but not vice versa); (c) limited equivalence, which refers to bidirectional implications between non-universal properties (e.g. if a language has a lateral click, then it also has a dental click and vice versa); (d) statistical universals, which have the character of quasiuniversals (e.g. with very few exceptions, nasals occur in all the world’s languages); (e) statistical correlations, which refer to the relations between properties (such as, if a certain property is present, e.g. a specification of the second person singular, then the probability of the third person being specified is greater than if the second person is not specified). Studies attempting to explain language universals generally assume one of the following three basic theoretical points of departure. (a) All languages have developed from one common language. Because all languages seem to be subject to constant change, this explanation is usually unsatisfactory. (b) Language fulfills the same functions in all language communities, and this has conditioned similar grammatical structures in all languages. (c) All languages have the same biological basis in humans with regard to their innate speech ability. Points (b) and (c) are not always mutually exclusive, but may actually complement each other. In the model going back to Noam Chomsky, universals are the basis of the innate language acquisition device, which enables children to learn the complex grammar of a natural language in a very short time (
universal grammar). On universals of language change, see Kiparsky in Bach and Harms 1968, King 1969.
References
Bach, E. and R.T.Harms. 1968. Universals in linguistic theory. New York.
Butterworth, B., B.Comrie, and Ö.Dahl (eds) 1984. Explanations for language universals. Berlin.
Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA.
——1975. Reflections on language. New York.
Comrie, B. 1981. Language universals and linguistic typology. Oxford. (2nd edn 1989.)
Croft, W. 1990.
Typology and universals. Cambridge.
Décsy, G. (ed.) 1988. A select catalog of language universals. Bloomington, IN.
Goddard, C. and A.Wierzbicka (eds) 1994. Semantics and lexical universals. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA.
Greenberg, J.H. (ed.) 1963. Universals of language. Cambridge, MA.
——1966. Language universals, with special reference to feature hierarchies. The Hague.
——1986. The role of universals in linguistic explanation. Stanford, CA.
Greenberg J.H. et al (eds) 1978. Universals of human language. 4 vols. Stanford, CA.
Hawkins, J.A. (ed.) 1988. Explaining language universals. Oxford.
Hawkins, J.A. and M.Grell-Mann (eds) 1992. The evolution of human languages. Reading. MA.
King, R. 1969. Historical linguistics and generative grammar. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Lehmann, W.P. 1978. Syntactic typology: studies in the phenomenology of language. Austin, TX.
Rutherford, W.E. 1987. Language universals and second language acquisition, 2nd edn. Amsterdam.
Seiler, H. et al. (eds) 1982–6. Apprehension, 3 vols. Tübingen.
Seiler, H. and W.Premper. 1989. Partizipation. Tübingen.
language typology, semantics
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