LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS

• Although a considerable amount of languages around the world seem

to have nothing in common with each other on the surface, the
majority of linguists propose that all languages share certain universal
principles. These principles are a set of rules referred to as a Universal
Grammar.
General Universal Principles
• There are many features that the languages of the world seem to
share. Some are more basic, such as the notion of ‘sentence’ or
‘verb,’ some are more complex, such as Wh- movement (content
question formation). And not all of these characteristics are
observable to the same extent. The rules which all languages have in
common, with either very few, or no exceptions are called absolute
universals.
• Consider the following statements.
• All languages are equipped with the grammatical structures needed to give
orders, negate a thought, and ask a question.
• All languages use verbs which can be interpreted as occurring in the past,
present, or future.
• All languages possess a finite set of phonemes (sounds) including vowels and
consonants, that are strung together to form syllables, and words.
• All languages share the basic categories of words, such as nouns, verbs,
description words, relative clauses, and a method for counting.
• All languages use pronouns.
• All languages include any blend of or subcategory of the basis five colors: red,
blue, yellow, black and white. Did you know that that the colors white and black
are included in every language?
Those linguistic features that are shared by many but not all languages
are referred to relative universals or universal tendencies. These
include the fact that most languages have nasal stops, however several
do not. Or that phonemic inventories of most languages include
nasality and the voicing of obstruents. Syllables are constructed of
various combinations of vowels and consonants, with the vowel being
in the nucleus in most languages (however some permit consonants in
the nucleus, such as Berber). Most languages have a category for
adjectives however Blackfoot (an American Indian language) uses a
stative verb “to be…” to describe nouns.
Another type of universal is implicational. This means that the
presence of X in a language implies the presence of Y. For instance,
according to Greenberg, languages that have gender categories for
nouns will also have gender categories for pronouns. And if a language
has gender categories, it will also have number categories.
These universal principles help linguists to not only understand the
nature of all languages as well as specific languages, but also shed light
on the nature of how humans acquire and use language.
References

Chomsky, N. (1988). Language and problems of knowledge. Cambridge,

Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Glougie, Jennifer R.S. 2000. “Topics in the syntax and semantics of
Blackfoot quantifiers
and nominals.” MA thesis, University of British Columbia
Greenberg “Some Universals of Grammar with Particular Reference to
the Order of Meaningful Elements,” Universals of Language, London:
MIT Press, pp. 110-113.