1. Family: Dravidian
  2. Genus: Northern Dravidian

Brahui

WALS coordinates: 28° 30′ N, 67° E

spoken in Pakistan

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Brahui
Routledge:
    Other:
      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 None missing in /p t k b d g/
      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 Complex
      Tone No tones
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
      Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 2-3 categories per word
      Locus of Marking in the Clause Dependent marking
      Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Dependent marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Dependent-marking
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
      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 suffix
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
      The Associative Plural Unique affixal associative plural
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related to non-remote demonstratives
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Special
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
      Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
      Number of Cases 10 or more cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
      Ordinal Numerals First/one-th, two-th, three-th
      Distributive Numerals Marked by reduplication
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally different
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification No possessive classification
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
      The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
      The Future Tense No inflectional future
      The Perfect Other perfect
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Affixes on verbs
      Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs
      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 Tense
      Verbal Number and Suppletion None
      Word Order
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
      Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun Other
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Nominative - accusative (standard)
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Nominative - accusative (standard)
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
      Verbal Person Marking Only the A argument
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking Zero in some 3sg forms
      Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative affix
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
      Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Gap
      Purpose Clauses Balanced/deranked
      'When' Clauses Balanced
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Numeral Bases Decimal