1. Family: Japanese
  2. Genus: Japanese

Japanese

WALS coordinates: 37° N, 140° E

spoken in Japan

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Japanese
Routledge:
    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 both plosives and fricatives
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
      Uvular Consonants Uvular continuants only
      Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
      Lateral Consonants No laterals
      The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
      Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone Simple tone system
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
      Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 4-5 categories per word
      Locus of Marking in the Clause Dependent marking
      Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Dependent marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Dependent-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
      Coding of Nominal Plurality No plural
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality Only human nouns, optional
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person stem + nominal plural affix
      The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural
      Definite Articles No definite, but indefinite article
      Indefinite Articles Indefinite word distinct from 'one'
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Different inflection
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person only, but also non-singular
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Pronouns avoided for politeness
      Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
      Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
      Number of Cases 8-9 cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
      Ordinal Numerals One-th, two-th, three-th
      Distributive Numerals Marked by suffix
      Numeral Classifiers Obligatory
      Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, with interrogative
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification No possessive classification
      Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Genitives and adjectives collapsed
      Adjectives without Nouns Marked by mixed or other strategies
      Action Nominal Constructions Double-Possessive
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
      The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
      The Future Tense No inflectional future
      The Perfect No perfect
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
      The Morphological Imperative Second person number-neutral
      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 Overlap for either possibility or 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 XOV
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
      Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
      Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Relative clause-Noun
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
      Position of Polar Question Particles Final
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not 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 RelN
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and AdjN
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Nominative - accusative (standard)
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Nominative - accusative (standard)
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Neutral
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Optional pronouns in subject position
      Verbal Person Marking No person marking
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No person marking
      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
      Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
      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 and A/Cat
      Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Possession Locational
      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
      'Want' Complement Subjects Desiderative verbal affix
      Purpose Clauses Balanced/deranked
      'When' Clauses Balanced/deranked
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Identical
      Finger and Hand Different
      Numeral Bases Decimal
      Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories 6
      Number of Basic Colour Categories 11
      Green and Blue Green vs. blue
      Red and Yellow Red vs. yellow
      M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
      Tea Words derived from Sinitic cha
      Other
      Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Affective meanings