In metaphysics, a universal is what particular things have in common, namely characteristics or qualities. In other words, universals are repeatable or recurrent entities that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. For example, suppose there are two chairs in a room, each of which is green. These two chairs share the quality of “chairness”, as well as “greenness” or the quality of being green; in other words, they share two “universals”. There are three major kinds of qualities or characteristics: types or kinds (e.g. mammal), properties (e.g. short, strong), and relations (e.g. father of, next to). These are all different types of universals.
| INDEFINITE UNIVERSAL CATEGORY | SEMANTIC PRIMES | DEFINITE CATEGORY | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Substantives | I, you, someone, people, something/thing, body | |||
| Relational Substantives | kind, part | |||
| Determiners | this, the same, other~else~another | |||
| Indefinite quantity | Quantifiers | one, two, some, all, much/many, little/few | ||
| Evaluators | good, bad | |||
| Descriptors | big, small | |||
| Mental predicates | think, know, want, don't want, feel, see, hear | |||
| Indefinite Voice | Speech | say, words, true | ||
| Indefinite action | Actions, Events, Movement | do, happen, move | ||
| Existence, Possession | be (somewhere), there is, be (someone/something), (is) mine | |||
| Indefinite energy | Life and Death | live, die | ||
| Indefinite time | Time | when/time, now, before, after, a long time, a short time, for some time, moment | ||
| Indefinite space | Space | where/place, here, above, below, far, near, side, inside, touch (contact) | ||
| Indefinite logic | Logical Concepts | not, maybe, can, because, if | ||
| Intensifier, Augmentor | very, more | |||
| Similarity | like/as/way | |||
| CATEGORY | SEMANTIC MOLECULES | |||
| Body parts | hands, mouth, eyes, head, ears, nose, face, teeth, fingers, breast, skin, bones, blood | |||
| Physical | long, round, flat, thin, hard, soft, sharp, smooth, heavy | |||
| Biosocial | children, men, women, be born, mother, father, wife, husband |