1. Family: Trans-New Guinea
  2. Genus: Madang

Amele

WALS coordinates: 5° 15′ S, 145° 35′ E

spoken in Papua New Guinea

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Large
      Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Missing /p/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
      Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone No tones
      Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Unbounded: Stress can be anywhere
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Coda consonant
      Rhythm Types No rhythmic stress
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants Labial-velars
      Morphology
      Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
      Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 6-7 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 Syncretic
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders None
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems No gender
      Systems of Gender Assignment No gender
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality Only human nouns, obligatory
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem + pronominal plural affix
      The Associative Plural No associative plural
      Definite Articles No definite, but indefinite article
      Indefinite Articles Indefinite word distinct from 'one'
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
      Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
      Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
      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 No distributive numerals
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, without interrogative
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification More than five classes
      Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Adjectives and relative clauses collapsed
      Adjectives without Nouns Without marking
      Action Nominal Constructions Possessive-Accusative
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
      The Past Tense Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions
      The Future Tense Inflectional future exists
      The Perfect From 'finish', 'already'
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
      The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
      The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Other kinds of markers
      Epistemic Possibility Other
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
      Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
      Verbal Number and Suppletion Singular-plural pairs, no suppletion
      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 Noun-Demonstrative
      Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
      Position of Polar Question Particles Final
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
      Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Final subordinator word
      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 NRel
      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 Accusative
      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 No reciprocals
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions Benefactive object; both bases
      Periphrastic Causative Constructions Sequential but no purposive
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative particle
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Possession Conjunctional
      Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
      Comparative Constructions Exceed
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Non-reduction
      Relativization on Obliques Non-reduction
      'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is expressed overtly
      Purpose Clauses Balanced/deranked
      'When' Clauses Deranked
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
      Other
      Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Affective meanings