1. Family: Afro-Asiatic
  2. Subfamily: Cushitic
  3. Genus: Southern Cushitic

Iraqw

WALS coordinates: 4° S, 35° 30′ E

spoken in Tanzania

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Iraqw
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Mbulu
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Moderately large
    Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio High
    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 Uvular stops only
    Glottalized Consonants Ejectives and implosives
    Lateral Consonants /l/ and lateral obstruent
    The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Moderately complex
    Tone Simple tone system
    Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Combined: Right-edge and unbounded
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Combined
    Rhythm Types No rhythmic stress
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants Pharyngeals
    Morphology
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
    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 Sex-based
    Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic and formal
    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 inclusive/exclusive
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Four-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Different stem
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 1st or 2nd person but not 3rd
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
    Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
    Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
    Number of Cases Exclusively borderline case-marking
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Comitatives and Instrumentals Mixed
    Ordinal Numerals First, two, three
    Distributive Numerals Marked by reduplication
    Numeral Classifiers Absent
    Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, without interrogative
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Highly differentiated
    Adjectives without Nouns Marked by preceding word
    Action Nominal Constructions Restricted
    Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
    Verbal Categories
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
    The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
    Epistemic Possibility Other
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity
    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 SOV
    Order of Subject and Verb SV
    Order of Object and Verb OV
    Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb No dominant order
    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 Noun-Numeral
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
    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 Prepositions
    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 Nominative - accusative (standard)
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
    Verbal Person Marking Only the A 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' Indirect-object construction
    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
    Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Negative existential construction
    Polar Questions Interrogative verb morphology
    Predicative Adjectives Mixed
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
    Complex Sentences
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
    Purpose Clauses Deranked
    'When' Clauses Deranked
    Reason Clauses Deranked
    Lexicon
    Numeral Bases Decimal