Drehu

WALS coordinates: 21° S, 167° 15′ E

spoken in New Caledonia

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Dehu
Routledge:
  • Dehu
Other:
  • Lifu,
  • Dehu
ISO 639-3:

Features

Feature Value References
Phonology
Consonant Inventories Moderately large
Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
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 Initial velar nasal
Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
Front Rounded Vowels None
Syllable Structure Moderately complex
Tone No tones
Fixed Stress Locations Initial
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 'Th' sounds
Morphology
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation
Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
Case Syncretism No case marking
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking No subject person/number marking
Nominal Categories
Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural word
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem + pronominal plural affix
Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Inclusive/exclusive
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person only, but also non-singular
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
Numeral Classifiers Absent
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
Nominal Syntax
Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
Possessive Classification Two classes
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
Verbal Categories
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
The Optative Inflectional optative absent
Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
Epistemic Possibility Other
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
Word Order
Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
Order of Subject and Verb SV
Order of Object and Verb VO
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
Position of Polar Question Particles Initial
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and NAdj
Simple Clauses
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Active-inactive
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Active - inactive
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Neutral
Verbal Person Marking No person marking
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No person marking
Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Mixed
Passive Constructions Present
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
Negative Morphemes Negative word, unclear if verb or particle
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
Polar Questions Question particle
Complex Sentences
'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
Purpose Clauses Balanced
'When' Clauses Balanced
Reason Clauses Balanced
Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
Lexicon
Hand and Arm Different
Finger and Hand Different
Numeral Bases Pure vigesimal