| Phonology |
|---|
|
Consonant Inventories
|
Average |
|
|
Vowel Quality Inventories
|
Large (7-14) |
|
|
Consonant-Vowel Ratio
|
Moderately low |
|
|
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives
|
No voicing constrast |
|
|
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems
|
Other |
|
|
Uvular Consonants
|
None |
|
|
Glottalized Consonants
|
Implosives only |
|
|
Lateral Consonants
|
Laterals, but no /l/, no obstruent laterals |
|
|
The Velar Nasal
|
No initial velar nasal |
|
|
Vowel Nasalization
|
Contrast absent |
|
|
Front Rounded Vowels
|
None |
|
|
Syllable Structure
|
Complex |
|
|
Tone
|
No tones |
|
|
Fixed Stress Locations
|
Ultimate |
|
|
Weight-Sensitive Stress
|
Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity) |
|
|
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems
|
Prominence |
|
|
Rhythm Types
|
Undetermined |
|
|
Absence of Common Consonants
|
All present |
|
|
Presence of Uncommon Consonants
|
None |
|
| Morphology |
|---|
|
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology
|
Little affixation |
|
|
Reduplication
|
Productive full and partial reduplication |
|
|
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 word |
|
|
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality
|
All nouns, always optional |
|
|
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns
|
Person-number stem |
|
|
Definite Articles
|
Definite word distinct from demonstrative |
|
|
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns
|
No inclusive/exclusive |
|
|
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection
|
No person marking |
|
|
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns
|
No gender distinctions |
|
|
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns
|
Pronouns avoided for politeness |
|
|
Indefinite Pronouns
|
Mixed |
|
|
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
|
Differentiation |
|
|
Ordinal Numerals
|
One-th, two-th, three-th |
|
|
Numeral Classifiers
|
Optional |
|
|
Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers
|
Formally similar, with interrogative |
|
|
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes
|
No possessive affixes |
|
| Nominal Syntax |
|---|
|
Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses
|
Weakly differentiated |
|
|
Noun Phrase Conjunction
|
'And' different from 'with' |
|
| 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
|
No tense-aspect inflection |
|
|
The Morphological Imperative
|
No second-person imperatives |
|
|
The Prohibitive
|
Normal imperative + special negative |
|
|
The Optative
|
Inflectional optative absent |
|
|
Situational Possibility
|
Verbal constructions |
|
|
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 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 |
|
|
Order of Degree Word and Adjective
|
Adjective-Degree word |
|
|
Position of Polar Question Particles
|
Final |
|
|
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions
|
Not 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 NAdj |
|
| Simple Clauses |
|---|
|
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases
|
Neutral |
|
|
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns
|
Neutral |
|
|
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking
|
Neutral |
|
|
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'
|
Mixed |
|
|
Passive Constructions
|
Absent |
|
|
Periphrastic Causative Constructions
|
Both |
|
|
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions
|
Morphological but no compound |
|
|
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 |
|
|
Comparative Constructions
|
Exceed |
|
| Complex Sentences |
|---|
|
Relativization on Subjects
|
Gap |
|
|
Relativization on Obliques
|
Gap |
|
|
'Want' Complement Subjects
|
Subject is left implicit |
|
| Lexicon |
|---|
|
Hand and Arm
|
Identical |
|
|
Numeral Bases
|
Decimal |
|
|
Tea
|
Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te |
|
| Other |
|---|
|
Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks
|
Affective meanings |
|
