Definition of Implicational Universals:

Implicational universals are linguistic principles or patterns that establish a relationship between the occurrence of two linguistic phenomena within a language. These universals state that if a certain linguistic feature or property is present in a language, then another related feature or property will also be present.

Key Characteristics:

• Conditional Relationship: Implicational universals assert a conditional relationship between two linguistic phenomena, suggesting that the occurrence of one phenomenon implies or predicts the presence of another.
• Generalizability: These universals are observed across multiple languages or within a specific language family.
• Probabilistic Nature: While implicational universals are widely observed, they are not absolute rules, and exceptions can occur.

Examples:

Some examples of implicational universals in linguistics include:

• The Tolerance Principle: If a language allows a certain consonant cluster, it will also allow any smaller cluster.
• The Animacy Hierarchy: Languages that grammatically encode distinctions in animacy within their noun systems are also likely to encode distinctions in other semantic features like humanness or gender.
• Word Order Universals: If a language has a verb-object word order, it is also likely to have a subject-verb word order.

Implicational universals play a crucial role in understanding language typology and discovering underlying patterns and regularities in human languages.