1. Family: Indo-European
  2. Genus: Germanic

English

WALS coordinates: 52° N, 0° E

spoken in Ireland, United Kingdom

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • English
Routledge:
    Other:
    • English (Standard Southern British)
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Average
    Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio 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 initial velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Complex
    Tone No tones
    Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Right-oriented: One of the last three
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Long vowel or coda consonant
    Rhythm Types Trochaic
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants 'Th' sounds
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
    Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 2-3 categories per word
    Locus of Marking in the Clause Dependent marking
    Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Dependent marking
    Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Dependent-marking
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
    Reduplication No productive reduplication
    Case Syncretism Core cases only
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Syncretic
    Nominal Categories
    Number of Genders Three
    Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems 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 stem
    The Associative Plural No associative plural
    Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
    Indefinite Articles Indefinite word distinct from 'one'
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection 'We' the same as 'I'
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related for all demonstratives
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person singular only
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
    Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
    Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
    Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
    Number of Cases 2 cases
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Comitatives and Instrumentals Identity
    Ordinal Numerals First, second, three-th
    Distributive Numerals No distributive numerals
    Numeral Classifiers Absent
    Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, without interrogative
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Highly differentiated
    Adjectives without Nouns Marked by following word
    Action Nominal Constructions Mixed
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
    Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
    The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
    The Future Tense No inflectional future
    The Perfect From possessive
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
    The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
    The Prohibitive Normal imperative + normal negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
    Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for both possibility and necessity
    Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
    Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
    Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect Tense
    Verbal Number and Suppletion None
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
    Order of Subject and Verb SV
    Order of Object and Verb VO
    Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb VOX
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun No dominant order
    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 Noun-Relative clause
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
    Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Initial interrogative phrase
    Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word
    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 AdjN
    Simple Clauses
    Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Nominative - accusative (standard)
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Obligatory pronouns in subject position
    Verbal Person Marking Only the A argument
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No zero realization
    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
    Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
    Passive Constructions Present
    Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
    Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
    Periphrastic Causative Constructions Sequential but no purposive
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
    Negative Morphemes Negative particle
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
    Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Mixed behaviour
    Polar Questions Interrogative word order
    Predicative Possession 'Have'
    Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
    Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
    Comparative Constructions Particle
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Relative pronoun
    Relativization on Obliques Relative pronoun
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
    Purpose Clauses Balanced/deranked
    'When' Clauses Balanced/deranked
    Reason Clauses Balanced/deranked
    Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
    Lexicon
    Hand and Arm Different
    Finger and Hand Different
    Numeral Bases Decimal
    Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories 6
    Number of Basic Colour Categories 11
    Green and Blue Green vs. blue
    Red and Yellow Red vs. yellow
    M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
    N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
    Tea Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te
    Other
    Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Affective meanings