Family: Indo-European
Genus: Greek

Greek (Modern)

WALS coordinates: 39° N, 22° E

spoken in Greece

Find examples here.

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:	Greek
Ruhlen:	Greek
Routledge:	Greek
Other:	Modern Greek
ISO 639-3:	ell

Features

ID	Feature	Value	Area
1A	Consonant Inventories	Average	Phonology	comment
2A	Vowel Quality Inventories	Average (5-6)	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	No velar nasal	Phonology	comment
10A	Vowel Nasalization	Contrast absent	Phonology	comment
11A	Front Rounded Vowels	None	Phonology	comment
12A	Syllable Structure	Complex	Phonology	comment
13A	Tone	No tones	Phonology	comment
14A	Fixed Stress Locations	Antepenultimate	Phonology	comment
15A	Weight-Sensitive Stress	Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)	Phonology	comment
16A	Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems	Lexical stress	Phonology	comment
17A	Rhythm Types	Trochaic	Phonology	comment
18A	Absence of Common Consonants	All present	Phonology	comment
19A	Presence of Uncommon Consonants	'Th' sounds	Phonology	comment
20A	Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives	Exclusively concatenative	Morphology	comment
21A	Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives	Case + number	Morphology	comment
21B	Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection	TAM+agreement+diathesis	Morphology	comment
22A	Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb	4-5 categories per word	Morphology	comment
23A	Locus of Marking in the Clause	Double marking	Morphology	comment
24A	Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases	Double marking	Morphology	comment
25A	Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology	Double-marking	Morphology	comment
25B	Zero Marking of A and P Arguments	Non-zero marking	Morphology	comment
26A	Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology	Strongly suffixing	Morphology	comment
27A	Reduplication	No productive reduplication	Morphology	comment
28A	Case Syncretism	Core and non-core	Morphology	comment
29A	Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking	Not syncretic	Morphology	comment
30A	Number of Genders	Three	Nominal Categories	comment
31A	Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems	Sex-based	Nominal Categories	comment
32A	Systems of Gender Assignment	Semantic and formal	Nominal Categories	comment
33A	Coding of Nominal Plurality	Plural suffix	Nominal Categories	comment
34A	Occurrence of Nominal Plurality	All nouns, always obligatory	Nominal Categories	comment
35A	Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns	Person-number stem + pronominal plural affix	Nominal Categories	comment
36A	The Associative Plural	No associative plural	Nominal Categories	comment
37A	Definite Articles	Definite word distinct from demonstrative	Nominal Categories	comment
38A	Indefinite Articles	Indefinite word same as 'one'	Nominal Categories	comment
39A	Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns	No inclusive/exclusive	Nominal Categories	comment examples
40A	Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection	No inclusive/exclusive	Nominal Categories	comment examples
41A	Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives	Three-way contrast	Nominal Categories	comment examples
42A	Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives	Identical	Nominal Categories	comment examples
44A	Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns	3rd person singular only	Nominal Categories	comment
45A	Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns	Binary politeness distinction	Nominal Categories	comment examples
46A	Indefinite Pronouns	Interrogative-based	Nominal Categories	comment examples
47A	Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns	Differentiated	Nominal Categories	comment
48A	Person Marking on Adpositions	No person marking	Nominal Categories	comment
49A	Number of Cases	3 cases	Nominal Categories	comment
50A	Asymmetrical Case-Marking	Syncretism in relevant NP-types	Nominal Categories	comment
51A	Position of Case Affixes	Case suffixes	Nominal Categories	comment
52A	Comitatives and Instrumentals	Identity	Nominal Categories	comment examples
53A	Ordinal Numerals	First, second, three-th	Nominal Categories	comment
54A	Distributive Numerals	Marked by preceding word	Nominal Categories	comment
57A	Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes	No possessive affixes	Nominal Categories	comment
58A	Obligatory Possessive Inflection	Absent	Nominal Syntax	comment
58B	Number of Possessive Nouns	None reported	Nominal Syntax	comment
59A	Possessive Classification	No possessive classification	Nominal Syntax	comment
62A	Action Nominal Constructions	Ergative-Possessive	Nominal Syntax	comment examples
63A	Noun Phrase Conjunction	'And' different from 'with'	Nominal Syntax	comment
64A	Nominal and Verbal Conjunction	Identity	Nominal Syntax	comment
65A	Perfective/Imperfective Aspect	Grammatical marking	Verbal Categories	comment
66A	The Past Tense	Present, no remoteness distinctions	Verbal Categories	comment
67A	The Future Tense	No inflectional future	Verbal Categories	comment
68A	The Perfect	From possessive	Verbal Categories	comment
69A	Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes	Tense-aspect suffixes	Verbal Categories	comment
70A	The Morphological Imperative	Second singular and second plural	Verbal Categories	comment
71A	The Prohibitive	Special imperative + special negative	Verbal Categories	comment
72A	Imperative-Hortative Systems	Maximal 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 both possibility and necessity	Verbal Categories	comment examples
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 and aspect	Verbal Categories	comment examples
79B	Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives	Imperative	Verbal Categories	comment
80A	Verbal Number and Suppletion	None	Verbal Categories	comment
81A	Order of Subject, Object and Verb	No dominant order	Word Order	comment
81B	Languages with two Dominant Orders of Subject, Object, and Verb	SVO or VSO	Word Order	comment
82A	Order of Subject and Verb	No dominant order	Word Order	comment
83A	Order of Object and Verb	VO	Word Order	comment
85A	Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase	Prepositions	Word Order	comment
86A	Order of Genitive and Noun	Noun-Genitive	Word Order	comment
87A	Order of Adjective and Noun	Adjective-Noun	Word Order	comment
88A	Order of Demonstrative and Noun	Demonstrative-Noun	Word Order	comment
89A	Order of Numeral and Noun	Numeral-Noun	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
91A	Order of Degree Word and Adjective	Degree word-Adjective	Word Order	comment
92A	Position of Polar Question Particles	Initial	Word Order	comment
93A	Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions	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 Prepositions	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 AdjN	Word Order	comment
98A	Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases	Nominative - accusative (standard)	Simple Clauses	comment examples
99A	Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns	Nominative - accusative (standard)	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	P precedes A	Simple Clauses	comment
105A	Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give'	Indirect-object construction	Simple Clauses	comment
106A	Reciprocal Constructions	Mixed	Simple Clauses	comment
107A	Passive Constructions	Present	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	Purposive but no sequential	Simple Clauses	comment examples
111A	Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions	Neither	Simple Clauses	comment
112A	Negative Morphemes	Negative particle	Simple Clauses	comment
113A	Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation	Symmetric	Simple Clauses	comment
114A	Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation	Non-assignable	Simple Clauses	comment
115A	Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation	Predicate negation also present	Simple Clauses	comment
116A	Polar Questions	Question particle	Simple Clauses	comment
117A	Predicative Possession	'Have'	Simple Clauses	comment
118A	Predicative Adjectives	Nonverbal encoding	Simple Clauses	comment
119A	Nominal and Locational Predication	Identical	Simple Clauses	comment
120A	Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals	Impossible	Simple Clauses	comment
121A	Comparative Constructions	Particle	Simple Clauses	comment
122A	Relativization on Subjects	Relative pronoun	Complex Sentences	comment
123A	Relativization on Obliques	Relative pronoun	Complex Sentences	comment
124A	'Want' Complement Subjects	Subject is expressed overtly	Complex Sentences	comment examples
125A	Purpose Clauses	Deranked	Complex Sentences	comment
126A	'When' Clauses	Balanced	Complex Sentences	comment
127A	Reason Clauses	Balanced	Complex Sentences	comment
128A	Utterance Complement Clauses	Balanced	Complex Sentences	comment
129A	Hand and Arm	Different	Lexicon	comment examples
130A	Finger and Hand	Different	Lexicon	comment examples
131A	Numeral Bases	Decimal	Lexicon	comment examples
136A	M-T Pronouns	M-T pronouns, paradigmatic	Lexicon	comment
136B	M in First Person Singular	m in first person singular	Lexicon	comment
137A	N-M Pronouns	No N-M pronouns	Lexicon	comment
137B	M in Second Person Singular	No m in second person singular	Lexicon	comment
138A	Tea	Words derived from Sinitic cha	Lexicon	comment examples
142A	Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks	Logical meanings	Other	comment
143A	Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb	NegV	Word Order	comment
143E	Preverbal Negative Morphemes	NegV	Word Order	comment
143F	Postverbal Negative Morphemes	None	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	More than one position	Word Order	comment
144B	Position of negative words relative to beginning and end of clause and with respect to adjacency to verb	Immed preverbal	Word Order	comment
144D	The Position of Negative Morphemes in SVO Languages	More than one construction	Word Order	comment
144E	Multiple Negative Constructions in SVO Languages	SNegVO/NegVSO	Word Order	comment
144H	NegSVO Order	No NegSVO	Word Order	comment
144I	SNegVO Order	Word&NoDoubleNeg	Word Order	comment
144J	SVNegO Order	No SVNegO	Word Order	comment
144K	SVONeg Order	No SVONeg	Word Order	comment
144T	The Position of Negative Morphemes in Verb-Initial Languages	NegVSO/SNegVO	Word Order	comment
144V	Verb-Initial with Preverbal Negative	Separate word, no double negation Word&NoDoubleNeg	Word Order	comment
144W	Verb-Initial with Negative that is Immediately Postverbal or between Subject and Object	None	Word Order	comment
144X	Verb-Initial with Clause-Final Negative	No clause-final neg	Word Order	comment