1. Family: Sepik
  2. Genus: Sepik Hill

Alamblak

WALS coordinates: 4° 40′ S, 143° 20′ E

spoken in Papua New Guinea

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Alamblak
Routledge:
    Other:
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Average
      Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
      Lateral Consonants No 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 Combined: Right-edge and unbounded
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Prominence
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      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 Dependent marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly 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 Two
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Sex-based
      Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural clitic
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem + nominal plural affix
      The Associative Plural Unique periphrastic associative plural
      Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
      Indefinite Articles No indefinite, but definite article
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related by gender markers
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person singular only
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
      Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
      Number of Cases 8-9 cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
      Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification No possessive classification
      Action Nominal Constructions No action nominals
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
      The Past Tense Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions
      The Future Tense Inflectional future exists
      The Perfect No perfect
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      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 No dominant order
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
      Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
      Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Relative clause-Noun
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
      Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
      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 AdjN
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
      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 A precedes P
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Secondary-object construction
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions Benefactive object; both bases
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Both
      Negative Morphemes Negative particle
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/NonReal
      Polar Questions Interrogative intonation only
      Predicative Possession Conjunctional
      Predicative Adjectives Mixed
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Gap
      Relativization on Obliques Gap
      Purpose Clauses Deranked
      'When' Clauses Deranked
      Reason Clauses Deranked
      Lexicon
      Numeral Bases Pure vigesimal
      M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns