Language Universals

Also see Language Universals.pdf.pdf in the files section.

"The fundamental observation of Language universals is that pairs of
linguistic categories in phonology, grammar and the lexicon typically
show asymmetrical behavior that is to a very large extent cross
linguistically uniform. Category oppositions like voiced/voiceless,
glottalized/plain, long/short, singular/plural, positive/negative,
consanguineal/affinal had been described earlier by the Prague School
linguists Trubetzkoy and Jakobson as representing a contract between
unmarked and marked. But it was Greenberg who most forcefully
claimed and demonstrated that these contrasts exist not just as part
of a particular language system, but can in principle be observed in
all languages, not only in phonology, but also through the
inflectional system and in the lexicon. Where the structuralists
Trubestzkoy and Jakobson saw markedness constrasts as embedded in the
structures of individual synchronic languages, Greenberg emphasized
the universal aspects of the substantive factors of phonetics,
semantics, and language use, and language change was an integrated
part of his explanatory framework (Haspelmath, 2005)."

Haspelmath, Martin (2005). Preface to the reprinted edition. In J.
Greenberg, Language universals (p. vii). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
GmbH and Co. KG. ISBN: 3-11-017284-4

M. Kelkar