1. Family: Sino-Tibetan
  2. Subfamily: Tibeto-Burman
  3. Genus: Kuki-Chin-Naga

Bawm

WALS coordinates: 22° 30′ N, 92° 15′ E

spoken in Bangladesh, India, Myanmar

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
    Routledge:
    • Chin (Central)
    Other:
    • Bom
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Average
    Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In both plosives and fricatives
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Missing /g/
    Uvular Consonants None
    Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
    Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
    The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Moderately complex
    Tone Simple tone system
    Fixed Stress Locations Ultimate
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation
    Case Syncretism No syncretism
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not 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 word
    Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always optional
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem + pronominal plural affix
    Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
    Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
    Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
    Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
    Number of Cases 4 cases
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
    Verbal Categories
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
    The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
    The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Minimal system
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity
    Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
    Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
    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 OXV
    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 Mixed
    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 Other
    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 Ergative - absolutive
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Ergative - absolutive
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject pronouns in different position
    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' Mixed
    Passive Constructions Absent
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Both
    Negative Morphemes Negative word, unclear if verb or particle
    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 Question particle
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
    Purpose Clauses Deranked
    'When' Clauses Deranked
    Lexicon
    Numeral Bases Decimal