Greenlandic (West)

WALS coordinates: 64° N, 51° W

spoken in Greenland

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Greenlandic
Routledge:
  • Greenland Eskimo (West)
Other:
  • West Greenlandic,
  • W. Greenlandic,
  • W Greenlandic,
  • Inuktitut, West Greenlandic
ISO 639-3:

Features

Feature Value References
Phonology
Consonant Inventories Average
Vowel Quality Inventories Small (2-4)
Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In fricatives alone
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
Uvular Consonants Uvular stops and continuants
Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
Lateral Consonants /l/ and lateral obstruent
The Velar Nasal No initial velar nasal
Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
Front Rounded Vowels None
Syllable Structure Moderately complex
Tone No tones
Fixed Stress Locations Ultimate
Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Long vowel or coda consonant
Rhythm Types Undetermined
Absence of Common Consonants All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
Morphology
Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Case + number
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 4-5 categories per word
Locus of Marking in the Clause Double marking
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Double marking
Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Double-marking
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
Reduplication No productive reduplication
Case Syncretism Core cases only
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
Nominal Categories
Number of Genders None
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems No gender
Systems of Gender Assignment No gender
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 Unique affixal associative plural
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 inclusive/exclusive
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-way contrast
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related to non-remote demonstratives
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
Number of Cases 8-9 cases
Asymmetrical Case-Marking Syncretism in relevant NP-types
Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
Ordinal Numerals First, second, three-th
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
Nominal Syntax
Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
Possessive Classification No possessive classification
Action Nominal Constructions Restricted
Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
Verbal Categories
Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
The Past Tense No past tense
The Future Tense Inflectional future exists
The Perfect No perfect
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
The Optative Inflectional optative absent
Situational Possibility Affixes on verbs
Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for both possibility and necessity
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Indirect only
Coding of Evidentiality Verbal affix or clitic
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
Verbal Number and Suppletion None
Word Order
Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV
Order of Subject and Verb SV
Order of Object and Verb OV
Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb OXV
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 Mixed
Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
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 Not initial interrogative phrase
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase OV and Postpositions
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun OV and NRel
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and NAdj
Simple Clauses
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Ergative - absolutive
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No zero realization
Order of Person Markers on the Verb A precedes P
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Secondary-object construction
Reciprocal Constructions Identical to reflexive
Passive Constructions Present
Antipassive Constructions Oblique patient
Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; both bases
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
Negative Morphemes Negative affix
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Asymmetric
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
Polar Questions Interrogative verb morphology
Predicative Possession 'Have'
Predicative Adjectives Mixed
Nominal and Locational Predication Different
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
Comparative Constructions Locational
Complex Sentences
Relativization on Subjects Gap
Relativization on Obliques Gap
Purpose Clauses Deranked
'When' Clauses Deranked
Reason Clauses Deranked
Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced/deranked
Lexicon
Numeral Bases Hybrid vigesimal-decimal
M-T Pronouns M-T pronouns, non-paradigmatic
N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns