1. Family: Mayan
  2. Genus: Mayan

Jakaltek

WALS coordinates: 15° 40′ N, 91° 40′ W

spoken in Guatemala

Alternative Names

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

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Moderately large
    Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives No voicing constrast
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
    Uvular Consonants Uvular stops and continuants
    Glottalized Consonants Ejectives only
    Lateral Consonants /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 Initial
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
    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 Strong prefixing
    Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
    Case Syncretism No case marking
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
    Nominal Categories
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural word
    Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always optional
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number affixes
    Definite Articles No definite, but indefinite article
    Indefinite Articles Indefinite word same as 'one'
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
    Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
    Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns and nouns
    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 First/one-th, two-th, three-th
    Numeral Classifiers Obligatory
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive prefixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
    Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
    The Past Tense No past tense
    The Future Tense No inflectional future
    The Perfect No perfect
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Mixed type
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
    The Prohibitive Special imperative + normal negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    Situational Possibility Affixes on verbs
    Epistemic Possibility Other
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity
    Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Indirect only
    Coding of Evidentiality Separate particle
    Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
    Verbal Number and Suppletion None
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb VSO
    Order of Subject and Verb VS
    Order of Object and Verb VO
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
    Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
    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 No question particle
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Initial interrogative phrase
    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 AdjN
    Simple Clauses
    Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Ergative
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Mixed
    Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking Zero in all 3sg forms
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb P precedes A
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Indirect-object construction
    Reciprocal Constructions Identical to reflexive
    Passive Constructions Present
    Antipassive Constructions Implicit patient
    Applicative Constructions Non-benefactive object; only transitive
    Periphrastic Causative Constructions Both
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
    Negative Morphemes Negative particle
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/NonReal
    Polar Questions Interrogative intonation only
    Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
    Comparative Constructions Locational
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Relativization on Obliques Gap
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is expressed overtly
    Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
    Lexicon
    Hand and Arm Identical
    Finger and Hand Different
    Numeral Bases Hybrid vigesimal-decimal
    M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
    N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns