1. Family: Nilo-Saharan
  2. Genus: Berta

Berta

WALS coordinates: 10° 20′ N, 34° 40′ E

spoken in Ethiopia, Sudan

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Berta
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Wetawit,
    • Barta
    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 No voicing constrast
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
    Uvular Consonants None
    Glottalized Consonants Ejectives only
    Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Moderately complex
    Tone Simple tone system
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants 'Th' sounds
    Morphology
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly suffixing
    Nominal Categories
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
    Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
    Verbal Categories
    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 Neither type of system
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
    Order of Subject and Verb SV
    Order of Object and Verb VO
    Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative suffix
    Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
    Position of Polar Question Particles Final
    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 NAdj
    Simple Clauses
    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 A precedes P
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Indirect-object construction
    Passive Constructions Present
    Negative Morphemes Negative affix
    Polar Questions Question particle