Khoekhoe

WALS coordinates: 25° 30′ S, 18° E

spoken in Namibia

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Nama
Routledge:
  • Nama/Damara
Other:
  • Hottentot,
  • Khoekhoe,
  • Nama,
  • Nama (Khoekhoe),
  • Khoekhoegowab
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 None
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 Complex tone system
Absence of Common Consonants All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants Clicks
Morphology
Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Isolating/concatenative
Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 6-7 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 Productive full and partial reduplication
Case Syncretism No case marking
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Syncretic
Nominal Categories
Number of Genders Three
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Sex-based
Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic and formal
Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number affixes
The Associative Plural Unique affixal associative plural
Indefinite Articles Indefinite affix
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Inclusive/exclusive
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns In 3rd person + 1st and/or 2nd person
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Binary politeness distinction
Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
Number of Cases 2 cases
Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
Comitatives and Instrumentals Identity
Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
Numeral Classifiers Absent
Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally different
Nominal Syntax
Obligatory Possessive Inflection Exists
Possessive Classification Two classes
Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Adjectives and relative clauses collapsed
Adjectives without Nouns Without marking
Action Nominal Constructions No action nominals
Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
Verbal Categories
Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
The Past Tense Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions
The Future Tense No inflectional future
The Perfect Other perfect
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
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 No overlap
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect Tense
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 Second position
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions 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 Accusative
Expression of Pronominal Subjects Obligatory pronouns in subject position
Verbal Person Marking Only the P argument
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' Double-object construction
Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
Passive Constructions Present
Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; both bases
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Both
Negative Morphemes Negative particle
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin and A/Cat
Polar Questions Question particle
Predicative Possession 'Have'
Predicative Adjectives Mixed
Nominal and Locational Predication Different
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
Comparative Constructions Locational
Complex Sentences
Relativization on Subjects Gap
'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
Purpose Clauses Balanced
'When' Clauses Balanced
Reason Clauses Balanced
Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
Lexicon
Numeral Bases Decimal
M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns