1. Linguistic features that are common to all languages, such as words and sentence structure or pronouns or color words. Substantive universals are based on observations across multiple languages. 2. A fundamental formal property built into the rule structure of all language systems. Example observed by US linguist Joseph Greenberg (1915-2001), "In declarative sentences, the predominant order is the subject preceded by the object."
LANGUAGE UNIVERSAL: "All languages have a language universal where the subject is preceeded by the object."
Cite this page: N., Pam M.S., "LANGUAGE UNIVERSAL," in PsychologyDictionary.org, May 11, 2013, https://psychologydictionary.org/language-universal/ (accessed December 1, 2020).
