The American linguist Joseph Greenberg (1915–2001) proposed a set of linguistic universals based primarily on a set of 30 languages. The following list is verbatim from the list printed in the appendix of Greenberg's Universals of Language[1] and "Universals Restated",[2][3] sorted by context.
The numbering is fixed to keep Greenberg's number associations as these are commonly referenced by number; e.g.: "Greenberg's linguistic universal number 12".
- ^ [1] Archived September 20, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ [2] Archived May 3, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Greenberg "Some Universals of Grammar with Particular Reference to the Order of Meaningful Elements," Universals of Language, London: MIT Press, pp. 110-113.