Koromfe

WALS coordinates: 14° 15′ N, 0° 55′ W

spoken in Burkina Faso, Mali

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Kurumfe
Routledge:
  • Kurumba
Other:
  • Kouroumba,
  • Kurumfe
ISO 639-3:

Features

Feature Value References
Phonology
Consonant Inventories Moderately small
Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
Consonant-Vowel Ratio Low
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 No initial velar nasal
Vowel Nasalization Contrast present
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
Rhythm Types No rhythmic stress
Absence of Common Consonants All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
Morphology
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly suffixing
Reduplication No productive reduplication
Case Syncretism No case marking
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking No subject person/number marking
Nominal Categories
Number of Genders Three
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Non-sex-based
Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic
Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number affixes
Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
Indefinite Articles No indefinite, but definite article
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives No distance contrast
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person only, but also non-singular
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Binary politeness distinction
Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
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
Numeral Classifiers Absent
Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, without interrogative
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
Nominal Syntax
Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Highly differentiated
Adjectives without Nouns Without marking
Action Nominal Constructions Restricted
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
Verbal Categories
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
The Morphological Imperative Second person number-neutral
The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
Imperative-Hortative Systems Both types of system
The Optative Inflectional optative absent
Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
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
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 No dominant order
Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
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 Final
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 Other
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 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' Secondary-object construction
Passive Constructions Absent
Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
Periphrastic Causative Constructions Sequential but no purposive
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
Negative Morphemes Negative 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
Comparative Constructions Exceed
Complex Sentences
Relativization on Subjects Gap
Relativization on Obliques Gap
'Want' Complement Subjects Both construction types exist
Purpose Clauses Balanced/deranked
'When' Clauses Balanced
Reason Clauses Balanced
Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced/deranked
Lexicon
Hand and Arm Identical
Finger and Hand Different
Numeral Bases Decimal
Other
Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Logical meanings