1. Family: Sino-Tibetan
  2. Genus: Chinese

Cantonese

WALS coordinates: 23° N, 113° E

spoken in China

Find examples here.

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Yue,
  • Cantonese
Routledge:
  • Yue
Other:
  • Chinese,
  • Chinese (Cantonese),
  • Cantonese Chinese
ISO 639-3:

Features

ID Feature Value Area References  
1A Consonant Inventories Average Phonology
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2A Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14) Phonology
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3A Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low Phonology
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4A Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives No voicing constrast Phonology
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5A Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other Phonology
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6A Uvular Consonants None Phonology
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7A Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants Phonology
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8A Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals Phonology
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9A The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal Phonology
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11A Front Rounded Vowels High and mid Phonology
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12A Syllable Structure Moderately complex Phonology
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13A Tone Complex tone system Phonology
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18A Absence of Common Consonants All present Phonology
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19A Presence of Uncommon Consonants None Phonology
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26A Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation Morphology
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30A Number of Genders None Nominal Categories
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31A Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems No gender Nominal Categories
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32A Systems of Gender Assignment No gender Nominal Categories
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33A Coding of Nominal Plurality No plural Nominal Categories
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35A Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person stem + nominal plural affix Nominal Categories
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36A The Associative Plural Unique affixal associative plural Nominal Categories
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examples
37A Definite Articles No definite, but indefinite article Nominal Categories
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38A Indefinite Articles Indefinite word same as 'one' Nominal Categories
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41A Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast Nominal Categories
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examples
42A Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical Nominal Categories
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examples
43A Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated Nominal Categories
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examples
46A Indefinite Pronouns Special Nominal Categories
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47A Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical Nominal Categories
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51A Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics Nominal Categories
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53A Ordinal Numerals One-th, two-th, three-th Nominal Categories
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54A Distributive Numerals No distributive numerals Nominal Categories
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55A Numeral Classifiers Obligatory Nominal Categories
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56A Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, with interrogative Nominal Categories
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57A Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes Nominal Categories
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60A Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Weakly differentiated Nominal Syntax
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examples
61A Adjectives without Nouns Marked by following word Nominal Syntax
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62A Action Nominal Constructions No action nominals Nominal Syntax
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64A Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation Nominal Syntax
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65A Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking Verbal Categories
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66A The Past Tense No past tense Verbal Categories
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67A The Future Tense No inflectional future Verbal Categories
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68A The Perfect Other perfect Verbal Categories
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69A Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes Verbal Categories
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70A The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives Verbal Categories
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71A The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative Verbal Categories
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74A Situational Possibility Verbal constructions Verbal Categories
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75A Epistemic Possibility Other Verbal Categories
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76A Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity Verbal Categories
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77A Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Indirect only Verbal Categories
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78A Coding of Evidentiality Separate particle Verbal Categories
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79A Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None Verbal Categories
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79B Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) Verbal Categories
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80A Verbal Number and Suppletion None Verbal Categories
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81A Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO Word Order
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82A Order of Subject and Verb SV Word Order
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83A Order of Object and Verb VO Word Order
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84A Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb XVO Word Order
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85A Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase No dominant order Word Order
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86A Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun Word Order
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87A Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun Word Order
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88A Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun Word Order
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89A Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun Word Order
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90A Order of Relative Clause and Noun Relative clause-Noun Word Order
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90B Prenominal relative clauses Relative clause-Noun (RelN) dominant Word Order
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91A Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective Word Order
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93A Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase Word Order
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94A Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Mixed Word Order
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95A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Other Word Order
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96A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and RelN Word Order
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97A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and AdjN Word Order
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105A Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Mixed Simple Clauses
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106A Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive Simple Clauses
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examples
112A Negative Morphemes Negative particle Simple Clauses
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113A Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both Simple Clauses
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114A Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat Simple Clauses
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115A Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present Simple Clauses
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116A Polar Questions Question particle Simple Clauses
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124A 'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit Complex Sentences
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129A Hand and Arm Different Lexicon
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examples
130A Finger and Hand Different Lexicon
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examples
138A Tea Words derived from Sinitic cha Lexicon
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examples
142A Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Affective meanings Other
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143A Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb NegV Word Order
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143E Preverbal Negative Morphemes NegV Word Order
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143F Postverbal Negative Morphemes None Word Order
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143G Minor morphological means of signaling negation None Word Order
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144A Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb SNegVO Word Order
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144B Position of negative words relative to beginning and end of clause and with respect to adjacency to verb Immed preverbal Word Order
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144D The Position of Negative Morphemes in SVO Languages SNegVO Word Order
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144H NegSVO Order No NegSVO Word Order
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144I SNegVO Order Word&NoDoubleNeg Word Order
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144J SVNegO Order No SVNegO Word Order
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144K SVONeg Order No SVONeg Word Order
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