Bella Coola

WALS coordinates: 52° 30′ N, 126° 40′ W

spoken in Canada

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Bella Coola
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Nuxalk,
    • Bella-Coola
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Moderately large
    Vowel Quality Inventories Small (2-4)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio High
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives No voicing constrast
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
    Uvular Consonants Uvular stops and continuants
    Glottalized Consonants Ejectives only
    Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Complex
    Tone No tones
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
    Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
    Nominal Categories
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural prefix
    Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
    Indefinite Articles No indefinite, but definite article
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
    Verbal Categories
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
    Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Indirect only
    Coding of Evidentiality Verbal affix or clitic
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb VSO
    Order of Subject and Verb VS
    Order of Object and Verb VO
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
    Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
    Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and AdjN
    Simple Clauses
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Secondary-object construction
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
    Polar Questions Interrogative verb morphology