1. Family: Iroquoian
  2. Genus: Southern Iroquoian

Cherokee

WALS coordinates: 35° 30′ N, 83° 30′ W

spoken in United States

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Cherokee
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Tsalagi,
    • Cherokee, North Carolina
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Small
    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 No glottalized consonants
    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 None
    Morphology
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly prefixing
    Nominal Categories
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural prefix
    Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
    Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive prefixes
    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 No dominant order
    Order of Subject and Verb No dominant order
    Order of Object and Verb OV
    Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb No dominant order
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
    Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
    Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Relative clause-Noun
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
    Position of Polar Question Particles Second position
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Initial interrogative phrase
    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 RelN
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and AdjN
    Simple Clauses
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Secondary-object construction
    Polar Questions Question particle
    Predicative Adjectives Mixed
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
    Lexicon
    Hand and Arm Different
    Finger and Hand Different
    Tea Others