1. Family: Austronesian
  2. Subfamily: Western Malayo-Polynesian
  3. Genus: Sundic

Indonesian

WALS coordinates: 0° N, 106° E

spoken in Indonesia

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Average
      Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In both plosives and fricatives
      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 absent
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Complex
      Tone No tones
      Fixed Stress Locations Penultimate
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
      Rhythm Types Trochaic
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively isolating
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
      Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 4-5 categories per word
      Locus of Marking in the Clause No marking
      Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases No marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Zero-marking
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
      Reduplication Full reduplication only
      Case Syncretism No case marking
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking No subject person/number marking
      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 complete reduplication
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always optional
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
      The Associative Plural Unique periphrastic associative plural
      Definite Articles Demonstrative word used as definite article
      Indefinite Articles No indefinite, but definite article
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Pronouns avoided for politeness
      Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
      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
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Mixed
      Ordinal Numerals First/one-th, two-th, three-th
      Distributive Numerals No distributive numerals
      Numeral Classifiers Optional
      Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, with interrogative
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification No possessive classification
      Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Weakly differentiated
      Adjectives without Nouns Marked by preceding word
      Action Nominal Constructions Ergative-Possessive
      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 No inflectional future
      The Perfect From 'finish', 'already'
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
      The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
      The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Affixes on verbs
      Epistemic Possibility Other
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
      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 Prepositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
      Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
      Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
      Position of Polar Question Particles In either of two positions
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Mixed
      Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions
      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 Neutral
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Obligatory pronouns in subject position
      Verbal Person Marking Only the P argument
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No zero realization
      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' Mixed
      Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
      Passive Constructions Present
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions Benefactive object; only transitive
      Periphrastic Causative Constructions Sequential but no purposive
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative word, unclear if verb or particle
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
      Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Possession Topic
      Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Gap
      Relativization on Obliques Gap
      'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
      Purpose Clauses Balanced
      'When' Clauses Balanced
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Different
      Finger and Hand Different
      Numeral Bases Decimal
      M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
      Tea Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te