1. Family: Austronesian
  2. Subfamily: Eastern Malayo-Polynesian
  3. Genus: Oceanic

Kilivila

WALS coordinates: 8° 30′ S, 151° 5′ E

spoken in Papua New Guinea

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Kilivila
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Kiriwina
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Average
    Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
    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 velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Moderately complex
    Tone No tones
    Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Right-edge: Ultimate or penultimate
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Long vowel or coda consonant
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly prefixing
    Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
    Case Syncretism No case marking
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
    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 Mixed morphological plural
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
    Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
    Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection Inclusive/exclusive
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related to non-remote demonstratives
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person singular only
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
    Indefinite Pronouns Mixed
    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
    Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
    Ordinal Numerals Various
    Distributive Numerals No distributive numerals
    Numeral Classifiers Obligatory
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Action Nominal Constructions No action nominals
    Verbal Categories
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect prefixes
    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 Affixes on verbs
    Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs
    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 None
    Verbal Number and Suppletion None
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb No dominant order
    Order of Subject and Verb VS
    Order of Object and Verb VO
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
    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 Numeral-Noun
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
    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 NAdj
    Simple Clauses
    Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases 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 Neither
    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 Interrogative intonation only
    Predicative Possession Topic
    Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Relativization on Obliques Gap
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is expressed overtly
    Purpose Clauses Balanced
    'When' Clauses Balanced
    Reason Clauses Balanced
    Lexicon
    Numeral Bases Decimal
    Other
    Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Affective meanings