Cree (Plains)

WALS coordinates: 54° N, 110° W

spoken in Canada

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Cree
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Western Cree
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Small
    Vowel Quality Inventories Small (2-4)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low
    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 No laterals
    The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Moderately complex
    Tone No tones
    Fixed Stress Locations Antepenultimate
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
    Rhythm Types Trochaic
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Isolating/concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Case + referentiality
    Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 6-7 categories per word
    Locus of Marking in the Clause Head marking
    Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Head marking
    Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Head-marking
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Equal prefixing and suffixing
    Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
    Case Syncretism No case marking
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
    Nominal Categories
    Number of Genders Two
    Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Non-sex-based
    Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
    Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number affixes
    The Associative Plural Unique periphrastic associative plural
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection Only inclusive
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person singular only
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
    Person Marking on Adpositions No adpositions
    Number of Cases Exclusively borderline case-marking
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
    Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
    Numeral Classifiers Absent
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive prefixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Exists
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Action Nominal Constructions Restricted
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
    The Past Tense No past tense
    The Future Tense No inflectional future
    The Perfect No perfect
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect prefixes
    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 Verbal constructions
    Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
    Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
    Verbal Number and Suppletion None
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb No dominant order
    Order of Subject and Verb No dominant order
    Order of Object and Verb VO
    Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb No dominant order
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase No adpositions
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
    Position of Polar Question Particles Second position
    Simple Clauses
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Hierarchical
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject clitics on variable host
    Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking Zero in all 3rd person forms
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb P precedes A
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Secondary-object construction
    Passive Constructions Absent
    Antipassive Constructions Implicit patient
    Applicative Constructions Benefactive object; both bases
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
    Negative Morphemes Negative particle
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
    Polar Questions Question particle
    Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
    Lexicon
    Hand and Arm Different
    Finger and Hand Different
    M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
    N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
    Tea Others