1. Family: Altaic
  2. Genus: Turkic

Chuvash

WALS coordinates: 55° 30′ N, 47° 30′ E

spoken in Russia

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Chuvash
Routledge:
    Other:
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Average
      Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low
      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
      Front Rounded Vowels High and mid
      Syllable Structure Complex
      Tone No tones
      Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Unbounded: Stress can be anywhere
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Prominence
      Rhythm Types No rhythmic stress
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
      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, optional in inanimates
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person stem + pronominal plural affix
      The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural
      Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related to non-remote demonstratives
      Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
      Number of Cases 6-7 cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
      Ordinal Numerals One-th, two-th, three-th
      Distributive Numerals Marked by suffix
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      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 Normal imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Affixes on verbs
      Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs
      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 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 No question particle
      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 OV and RelN
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and AdjN
      Simple Clauses
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative affix
      Polar Questions Interrogative verb morphology
      Lexicon
      Numeral Bases Decimal
      M-T Pronouns M-T pronouns, paradigmatic
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
      Tea Words derived from Sinitic cha