1. Family: Cariban
  2. Genus: Cariban

Hixkaryana

WALS coordinates: 1° S, 59° W

spoken in Brazil

Alternative Names

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

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Moderately small
    Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Missing /g/
    Uvular Consonants None
    Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
    Lateral Consonants Laterals, but no /l/, no obstruent laterals
    The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Moderately complex
    Tone No tones
    Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Not predictable
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Long vowel or coda consonant
    Rhythm Types Iambic
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
    Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 4-5 categories per word
    Locus of Marking in the Clause Head marking
    Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Head marking
    Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Head-marking
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Equal prefixing and suffixing
    Reduplication No productive reduplication
    Case Syncretism No case marking
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Syncretic
    Nominal Categories
    Number of Genders Two
    Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Non-sex-based
    Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural word
    Occurrence of Nominal Plurality Only human nouns, optional
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
    The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural
    Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
    Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection Inclusive/exclusive
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related for all demonstratives
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person only, but also non-singular
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
    Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
    Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
    Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
    Ordinal Numerals None
    Distributive Numerals No distributive numerals
    Numeral Classifiers Absent
    Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally different
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive prefixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Exists
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Action Nominal Constructions Ergative-Possessive
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
    Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Both expressed by juxtaposition
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
    The Past Tense Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions
    The Future Tense No inflectional future
    The Perfect No perfect
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
    The Prohibitive Normal imperative + normal negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    Epistemic Possibility Other
    Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Direct and indirect
    Coding of Evidentiality Verbal affix or clitic
    Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect Tense
    Verbal Number and Suppletion None
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb OVS
    Order of Subject and Verb VS
    Order of Object and Verb OV
    Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb OVX
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
    Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
    Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
    Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Initial interrogative phrase
    Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Final subordinator word
    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 Neutral
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Split
    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' Indirect-object construction
    Reciprocal Constructions Mixed
    Passive Constructions Present
    Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
    Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
    Negative Morphemes Negative affix
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Asymmetric
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin
    Polar Questions Interrogative intonation only
    Predicative Possession Conjunctional
    Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
    Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
    Comparative Constructions Conjoined
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Relativization on Obliques Non-reduction
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
    Purpose Clauses Deranked
    'When' Clauses Deranked
    Reason Clauses Deranked
    Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
    Lexicon
    Numeral Bases Restricted
    M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
    N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns