1. Family: Niger-Congo
  2. Genus: Kru

Grebo

WALS coordinates: 5° N, 8° W

spoken in Liberia

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Grebo
Routledge:
    Other:
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Average
      Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
      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 present
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Simple
      Tone Complex tone system
      Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Not predictable
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Lexical stress
      Rhythm Types No rhythmic stress
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants Labial-velars
      Morphology
      Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
      Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 6-7 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
      Case Syncretism No case marking
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders Three
      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 stem
      Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related by gender markers
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person only, but also non-singular
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      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
      Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification No possessive classification
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
      The Past Tense Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions
      The Future Tense Inflectional future exists
      The Perfect Other perfect
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular
      The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Minimal system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
      Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
      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 Postpositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
      Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
      Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Position of Polar Question Particles Initial
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Initial interrogative phrase
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Postpositions
      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 Neutral
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Nominative - accusative (standard)
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Neutral
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject pronouns in different position
      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' Double-object construction
      Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
      Passive Constructions Present
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; both bases
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative auxiliary verb
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Asymmetric
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/NonReal and A/Cat
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Complex Sentences
      Purpose Clauses Deranked
      'When' Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      M-T Pronouns M-T pronouns, paradigmatic
      N-M Pronouns N-M pronouns, non-paradigmatic