1. Family: Northwest Caucasian
  2. Genus: Northwest Caucasian

Abkhaz

WALS coordinates: 43° 4′ 48.00″ N, 41° E

spoken in Georgia

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Abkhaz
Routledge:
  • Abxaz
Other:
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Small
    Vowel Quality Inventories Small (2-4)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio High
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In both plosives and fricatives
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
    Uvular Consonants Uvular stops only
    Glottalized Consonants Ejectives only
    Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
    The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Complex
    Tone No tones
    Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Not predictable
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Lexical stress
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants Pharyngeals
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
    Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 10-11 categories per word
    Locus of Marking in the Clause Head marking
    Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Head marking
    Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Head-marking
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Equal prefixing and suffixing
    Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
    Case Syncretism No case marking
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
    Nominal Categories
    Number of Genders Three
    Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Sex-based
    Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
    Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
    The Associative Plural Unique affixal associative plural
    Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
    Indefinite Articles Indefinite word same as 'one'
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns In 3rd person + 1st and/or 2nd person
    Indefinite Pronouns Special
    Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
    Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns and nouns
    Number of Cases 2 cases
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
    Ordinal Numerals First/one-th, two-th, three-th
    Distributive Numerals Marked by mixed or other strategies
    Numeral Classifiers Absent
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive prefixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Highly differentiated
    Adjectives without Nouns Without marking
    Action Nominal Constructions Ergative-Possessive
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
    Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
    The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
    The Future Tense Inflectional future exists
    The Perfect Other perfect
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
    The Prohibitive Special imperative + normal negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
    The Optative Inflectional optative present
    Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
    Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity
    Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Indirect only
    Coding of Evidentiality Verbal affix or clitic
    Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect Tense
    Verbal Number and Suppletion None
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV
    Order of Subject and Verb SV
    Order of Object and Verb OV
    Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb XOV
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
    Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
    Order of Numeral and Noun No dominant order
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Relative clause-Noun
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
    Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
    Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Subordinating suffix
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase OV and Postpositions
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun OV and RelN
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and NAdj
    Simple Clauses
    Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Ergative
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
    Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No zero realization
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb P precedes A
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Indirect-object construction
    Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
    Passive Constructions Absent
    Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
    Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; only transitive
    Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
    Negative Morphemes Negative affix
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
    Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
    Polar Questions Interrogative verb morphology
    Predicative Possession 'Have'
    Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Relativization on Obliques Gap
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is expressed overtly
    Purpose Clauses Balanced/deranked
    'When' Clauses Deranked
    Reason Clauses Deranked
    Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced/deranked
    Lexicon
    Hand and Arm Different
    Finger and Hand Different
    Numeral Bases Hybrid vigesimal-decimal
    M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
    N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns