Abkhaz
WALS coordinates: 43° 5′ N, 41° E
spoken in Georgia
Find examples here.
Alternative Names
| Ethnologue: | |
|---|---|
| Ruhlen: |
|
| Routledge: |
|
| Other: |
|
| ISO 639-3: |
Features
| ID | Feature | Value | Area | References | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1A | Consonant Inventories | Large | Phonology | comment | |
| 2A | Vowel Quality Inventories | Small (2-4) | Phonology | comment | |
| 3A | Consonant-Vowel Ratio | High | Phonology | comment | |
| 4A | Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | In both plosives and fricatives | Phonology | comment | |
| 5A | Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems | None missing in /p t k b d g/ | Phonology | comment | |
| 6A | Uvular Consonants | Uvular stops only | Phonology | comment | |
| 7A | Glottalized Consonants | Ejectives only | Phonology | comment | |
| 8A | Lateral Consonants | /l/, no obstruent laterals | Phonology | comment | |
| 9A | The Velar Nasal | No velar nasal | Phonology | comment | |
| 10A | Vowel Nasalization | Contrast absent | Phonology | comment | |
| 11A | Front Rounded Vowels | None | Phonology | comment | |
| 12A | Syllable Structure | Complex | Phonology | comment | |
| 13A | Tone | No tones | Phonology | comment | |
| 14A | Fixed Stress Locations | No fixed stress | Phonology | comment | |
| 15A | Weight-Sensitive Stress | Not predictable | Phonology | comment | |
| 16A | Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems | Lexical stress | Phonology | comment | |
| 18A | Absence of Common Consonants | All present | Phonology | comment | |
| 19A | Presence of Uncommon Consonants | Pharyngeals | Phonology | comment | |
| 20A | Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives | Exclusively concatenative | Morphology | comment | |
| 21A | Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives | No case | Morphology | comment | |
| 21B | Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection | monoexponential TAM | Morphology | comment | |
| 22A | Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb | 10-11 categories per word | Morphology | comment | |
| 23A | Locus of Marking in the Clause | Head marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 24A | Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases | Head marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 25A | Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology | Head-marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 25B | Zero Marking of A and P Arguments | Non-zero marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 26A | Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Equal prefixing and suffixing | Morphology | comment | |
| 27A | Reduplication | Productive full and partial reduplication | Morphology | comment | |
| 28A | Case Syncretism | No case marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 29A | Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking | Not syncretic | Morphology | comment | |
| 30A | Number of Genders | Three | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 31A | Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems | Sex-based | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 32A | Systems of Gender Assignment | Semantic | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 33A | Coding of Nominal Plurality | Plural suffix | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 34A | Occurrence of Nominal Plurality | All nouns, always obligatory | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 35A | Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns | Person-number stem | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 36A | The Associative Plural | Unique affixal associative plural | Nominal Categories |
comment
examples |
|
| 37A | Definite Articles | Definite word distinct from demonstrative | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 38A | Indefinite Articles | Indefinite word same as 'one' | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 39A | Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns | Inclusive/exclusive | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 40A | Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection | No inclusive/exclusive | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 41A | Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives | Two-way contrast | Nominal Categories |
comment
examples |
|
| 42A | Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives | Identical | Nominal Categories |
comment
examples |
|
| 44A | Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | In 3rd person + 1st and/or 2nd person | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 46A | Indefinite Pronouns | Special | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 47A | Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns | Differentiated | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 48A | Person Marking on Adpositions | Pronouns and nouns | Nominal Categories |
comment
examples |
|
| 49A | Number of Cases | 2 cases | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 50A | Asymmetrical Case-Marking | Symmetrical | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 51A | Position of Case Affixes | No case affixes or adpositional clitics | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 52A | Comitatives and Instrumentals | Differentiation | Nominal Categories |
comment
examples |
|
| 53A | Ordinal Numerals | First/one-th, two-th, three-th | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 54A | Distributive Numerals | Marked by mixed or other strategies | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 55A | Numeral Classifiers | Absent | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 57A | Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | Possessive prefixes | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 58A | Obligatory Possessive Inflection | Absent | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 58B | Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 59A | Possessive Classification | No possessive classification | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 60A | Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses | Highly differentiated | Nominal Syntax |
comment
examples |
|
| 61A | Adjectives without Nouns | Without marking | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 62A | Action Nominal Constructions | Ergative-Possessive | Nominal Syntax |
comment
examples |
|
| 63A | Noun Phrase Conjunction | 'And' different from 'with' | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 64A | Nominal and Verbal Conjunction | Identity | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 65A | Perfective/Imperfective Aspect | Grammatical marking | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 66A | The Past Tense | Present, no remoteness distinctions | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 67A | The Future Tense | Inflectional future exists | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 68A | The Perfect | Other perfect | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 69A | Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Tense-aspect suffixes | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 70A | The Morphological Imperative | Second singular and second plural | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 71A | The Prohibitive | Special imperative + normal negative | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 72A | Imperative-Hortative Systems | Neither type of system | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 73A | The Optative | Inflectional optative present | Verbal Categories |
comment
examples |
|
| 74A | Situational Possibility | Verbal constructions | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 75A | Epistemic Possibility | Verbal constructions | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 76A | Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking | Overlap for either possibility or necessity | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 77A | Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality | Indirect only | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 78A | Coding of Evidentiality | Verbal affix or clitic | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 79A | Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect | Tense | Verbal Categories |
comment
examples |
|
| 79B | Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives | None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 80A | Verbal Number and Suppletion | None | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 81A | Order of Subject, Object and Verb | SOV | Word Order | comment | |
| 82A | Order of Subject and Verb | SV | Word Order | comment | |
| 83A | Order of Object and Verb | OV | Word Order | comment | |
| 84A | Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb | XOV | Word Order | comment | |
| 85A | Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Postpositions | Word Order | comment | |
| 86A | Order of Genitive and Noun | Genitive-Noun | Word Order | comment | |
| 87A | Order of Adjective and Noun | Noun-Adjective | Word Order | comment | |
| 88A | Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Demonstrative-Noun | Word Order | comment | |
| 89A | Order of Numeral and Noun | No dominant order | Word Order | comment | |
| 90A | Order of Relative Clause and Noun | Relative clause-Noun | Word Order | comment | |
| 90B | Prenominal relative clauses | Relative clause-Noun (RelN) dominant | Word Order | comment | |
| 91A | Order of Degree Word and Adjective | Degree word-Adjective | Word Order | comment | |
| 92A | Position of Polar Question Particles | No question particle | Word Order | comment | |
| 93A | Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions | Not initial interrogative phrase | Word Order | comment | |
| 94A | Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause | Subordinating suffix | Word Order | comment | |
| 95A | Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | OV and Postpositions | Word Order | comment | |
| 96A | Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun | OV and RelN | Word Order | comment | |
| 97A | Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun | OV and NAdj | Word Order | comment | |
| 98A | Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases | Neutral | Simple Clauses |
comment
examples |
|
| 99A | Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns | Neutral | Simple Clauses |
comment
examples |
|
| 100A | Alignment of Verbal Person Marking | Ergative | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 101A | Expression of Pronominal Subjects | Subject affixes on verb | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 102A | Verbal Person Marking | Both the A and P arguments | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 103A | Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking | No zero realization | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 104A | Order of Person Markers on the Verb | P precedes A | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 105A | Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' | Indirect-object construction | Simple Clauses |
comment
examples |
|
| 106A | Reciprocal Constructions | Distinct from reflexive | Simple Clauses |
comment
examples |
|
| 107A | Passive Constructions | Absent | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 108A | Antipassive Constructions | No antipassive | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 108B | Productivity of the Antipassive Construction | no antipassive | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 109A | Applicative Constructions | Benefactive and other; only transitive | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 109B | Other Roles of Applied Objects | Instrument | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 110A | Periphrastic Causative Constructions | Purposive but no sequential | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 111A | Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions | Morphological but no compound | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 112A | Negative Morphemes | Negative affix | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 113A | Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation | Both | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 114A | Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation | A/Cat | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 115A | Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation | Predicate negation also present | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 116A | Polar Questions | Interrogative verb morphology | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 117A | Predicative Possession | 'Have' | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 118A | Predicative Adjectives | Verbal encoding | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 119A | Nominal and Locational Predication | Different | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 120A | Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Impossible | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 122A | Relativization on Subjects | Gap | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 123A | Relativization on Obliques | Gap | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 124A | 'Want' Complement Subjects | Subject is expressed overtly | Complex Sentences |
comment
examples |
|
| 125A | Purpose Clauses | Balanced/deranked | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 126A | 'When' Clauses | Deranked | Complex Sentences |
comment
examples |
|
| 127A | Reason Clauses | Deranked | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 128A | Utterance Complement Clauses | Balanced/deranked | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 129A | Hand and Arm | Different | Lexicon |
comment
examples |
|
| 130A | Finger and Hand | Different | Lexicon |
comment
examples |
|
| 131A | Numeral Bases | Hybrid vigesimal-decimal | Lexicon |
comment
examples |
|
| 136A | M-T Pronouns | No M-T pronouns | Lexicon | comment | |
| 136B | M in First Person Singular | No m in first person singular | Lexicon | comment | |
| 137A | N-M Pronouns | No N-M pronouns | Lexicon | comment | |
| 137B | M in Second Person Singular | m in second person singular | Lexicon | comment | |
| 143A | Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb | Type 3 / Type 4 | Word Order | comment | |
| 143E | Preverbal Negative Morphemes | [Neg-V] | Word Order | comment | |
| 143F | Postverbal Negative Morphemes | [V-Neg] | Word Order | comment | |
| 143G | Minor morphological means of signaling negation | None | Word Order | comment | |
| 144A | Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb | MorphNeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 144L | The Position of Negative Morphemes in SOV Languages | More than one construction | Word Order | comment | |
| 144M | Multiple Negative Constructions in SOV Languages | SO[Neg-V]/SO[V-Neg] | Word Order | comment | |
| 144P | NegSOV Order | No NegSOV | Word Order | comment | |
| 144Q | SNegOV Order | No SNegOV | Word Order | comment | |
| 144R | SONegV Order | Prefix&NoDoubleNeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 144S | SOVNeg Order | Suffix&NoDoubleNeg | Word Order | comment |
