Ewe
WALS coordinates: 6° 20′ N, 0° 25′ E
Find examples here.
Alternative Names
| Ethnologue: | |
|---|---|
| Ruhlen: |
|
| Routledge: |
|
| Other: |
|
| ISO 639-3: |
Features
| ID | Feature | Value | Area | References | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1A | Consonant Inventories | Moderately large | Phonology | comment | |
| 2A | Vowel Quality Inventories | Large (7-14) | Phonology | comment | |
| 3A | Consonant-Vowel Ratio | Average | Phonology | comment | |
| 4A | Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | In both plosives and fricatives | Phonology | comment | |
| 5A | Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems | None missing in /p t k b d g/ | Phonology | comment | |
| 6A | Uvular Consonants | None | Phonology | comment | |
| 7A | Glottalized Consonants | No glottalized consonants | Phonology | comment | |
| 8A | Lateral Consonants | /l/, no obstruent laterals | Phonology | comment | |
| 9A | The Velar Nasal | Initial velar nasal | Phonology | comment | |
| 11A | Front Rounded Vowels | None | Phonology | comment | |
| 12A | Syllable Structure | Moderately complex | Phonology | comment | |
| 13A | Tone | Simple tone system | Phonology | comment | |
| 18A | Absence of Common Consonants | All present | Phonology | comment | |
| 19A | Presence of Uncommon Consonants | Labial-velars | Phonology | comment | |
| 23A | Locus of Marking in the Clause | No marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 24A | Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases | Dependent marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 25A | Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology | Inconsistent or other | Morphology | comment | |
| 25B | Zero Marking of A and P Arguments | Zero-marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 26A | Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Equal prefixing and suffixing | Morphology | comment | |
| 27A | Reduplication | Productive full and partial reduplication | Morphology | comment | |
| 28A | Case Syncretism | No case marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 29A | Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking | Syncretic | Morphology | comment | |
| 30A | Number of Genders | None | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 31A | Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems | No gender | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 32A | Systems of Gender Assignment | No gender | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 33A | Coding of Nominal Plurality | Plural clitic | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 35A | Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns | Person-number stem + nominal plural affix | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 36A | The Associative Plural | Associative same as additive plural | Nominal Categories |
comment
examples |
|
| 37A | Definite Articles | Demonstrative word used as definite article | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 38A | Indefinite Articles | Indefinite word distinct from 'one' | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 39A | Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns | No inclusive/exclusive | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 40A | Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection | No person marking | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 41A | Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives | Two-way contrast | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 44A | Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | No gender distinctions | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 45A | Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns | No politeness distinction | Nominal Categories |
comment
examples |
|
| 46A | Indefinite Pronouns | Generic-noun-based | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 47A | Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns | Differentiated | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 48A | Person Marking on Adpositions | Pronouns only | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 49A | Number of Cases | No morphological case-marking | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 50A | Asymmetrical Case-Marking | No case-marking | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 51A | Position of Case Affixes | No case affixes or adpositional clitics | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 52A | Comitatives and Instrumentals | Identity | Nominal Categories |
comment
examples |
|
| 53A | Ordinal Numerals | First, two-th, three-th | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 57A | Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes | Possessive suffixes | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 58A | Obligatory Possessive Inflection | Absent | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 58B | Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 59A | Possessive Classification | Two classes | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 62A | Action Nominal Constructions | Restricted | Nominal Syntax |
comment
examples |
|
| 63A | Noun Phrase Conjunction | 'And' identical to 'with' | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 65A | Perfective/Imperfective Aspect | No grammatical marking | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 66A | The Past Tense | No past tense | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 67A | The Future Tense | Inflectional future exists | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 68A | The Perfect | No perfect | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 70A | The Morphological Imperative | No second-person imperatives | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 71A | The Prohibitive | Normal imperative + special negative | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 72A | Imperative-Hortative Systems | Neither type of system | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 73A | The Optative | Inflectional optative absent | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 74A | Situational Possibility | Verbal constructions | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 75A | Epistemic Possibility | Verbal constructions | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 76A | Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking | Overlap for either possibility or necessity | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 77A | Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 78A | Coding of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 79A | Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect | Tense | Verbal Categories |
comment
examples |
|
| 79B | Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives | None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 80A | Verbal Number and Suppletion | None | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 81A | Order of Subject, Object and Verb | SVO | Word Order | comment | |
| 82A | Order of Subject and Verb | SV | Word Order | comment | |
| 83A | Order of Object and Verb | VO | Word Order | comment | |
| 85A | Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Postpositions | Word Order | comment | |
| 86A | Order of Genitive and Noun | Genitive-Noun | Word Order | comment | |
| 87A | Order of Adjective and Noun | Noun-Adjective | Word Order | comment | |
| 88A | Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Noun-Demonstrative | Word Order | comment | |
| 89A | Order of Numeral and Noun | Noun-Numeral | Word Order | comment | |
| 90A | Order of Relative Clause and Noun | Noun-Relative clause | Word Order | comment | |
| 90C | Postnominal relative clauses | Noun-Relative clause (NRel) dominant | Word Order | comment | |
| 92A | Position of Polar Question Particles | Final | Word Order | comment | |
| 93A | Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions | Not initial interrogative phrase | Word Order | comment | |
| 94A | Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause | Initial subordinator word | Word Order | comment | |
| 95A | Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | VO and Postpositions | Word Order | comment | |
| 96A | Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun | VO and NRel | Word Order | comment | |
| 97A | Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun | VO and NAdj | Word Order | comment | |
| 98A | Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases | Neutral | Simple Clauses |
comment
examples |
|
| 99A | Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns | Neutral | Simple Clauses |
comment
examples |
|
| 100A | Alignment of Verbal Person Marking | Accusative | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 101A | Expression of Pronominal Subjects | Subject affixes on verb | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 102A | Verbal Person Marking | Both the A and P arguments | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 103A | Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking | No zero realization | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 104A | Order of Person Markers on the Verb | A precedes P | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 107A | Passive Constructions | Absent | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 108A | Antipassive Constructions | No antipassive | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 108B | Productivity of the Antipassive Construction | no antipassive | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 109A | Applicative Constructions | No applicative construction | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 109B | Other Roles of Applied Objects | No applicative construction | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 110A | Periphrastic Causative Constructions | Sequential but no purposive | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 111A | Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions | Neither | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 112A | Negative Morphemes | Double negation | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 113A | Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation | Both | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 114A | Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation | A/Cat | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 116A | Polar Questions | Question particle | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 117A | Predicative Possession | Locational | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 118A | Predicative Adjectives | Mixed | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 119A | Nominal and Locational Predication | Different | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 120A | Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Impossible | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 124A | 'Want' Complement Subjects | Subject is expressed overtly | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 126A | 'When' Clauses | Balanced | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 127A | Reason Clauses | Balanced | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 131A | Numeral Bases | Decimal | Lexicon |
comment
examples |
|
| 138A | Tea | Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te | Lexicon |
comment
examples |
|
| 143A | Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb | ObligDoubleNeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 143B | Obligatory Double Negation | NegVNeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 143E | Preverbal Negative Morphemes | NegV | Word Order | comment | |
| 143F | Postverbal Negative Morphemes | VNeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 143G | Minor morphological means of signaling negation | None | Word Order | comment | |
| 144A | Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb | ObligDoubleNeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 144D | The Position of Negative Morphemes in SVO Languages | ObligNeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 144F | Obligatory Double Negation in SVO languages | SNegVONeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 144H | NegSVO Order | No NegSVO | Word Order | comment | |
| 144I | SNegVO Order | Word&OnlyWithAnotherNeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 144J | SVNegO Order | No SVNegO | Word Order | comment | |
| 144K | SVONeg Order | OnlyWithAnotherNeg | Word Order | comment |
