1. Family: Nilo-Saharan
  2. Genus: Kunama

Kunama

WALS coordinates: 14° 30′ N, 37° E

spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Kunama
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Baza
    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 Missing /p/
    Uvular Consonants None
    Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
    Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
    The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Moderately complex
    Tone Simple tone system
    Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Right-oriented: One of the last three
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Lexical stress
    Rhythm Types Undetermined
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Isolating/concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
    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 Weakly suffixing
    Case Syncretism No case marking
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Syncretic
    Nominal Categories
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural clitic
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem + pronominal plural affix
    Definite Articles Definite affix
    Indefinite Articles No indefinite, but definite article
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection Inclusive/exclusive
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Different stem
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
    Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
    Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
    Number of Cases 6-7 cases
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
    Position of Case Affixes Postpositional clitics
    Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
    Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
    Possessive Classification Two classes
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
    Verbal Categories
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
    The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
    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 Singular-dual-plural triples, suppletion
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV
    Order of Subject and Verb SV
    Order of Object and Verb OV
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
    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
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
    Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle
    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 NRel
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and NAdj
    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 Subject affixes on verb
    Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking Zero in all 3sg forms
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P are fused
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Indirect-object construction
    Passive Constructions Present
    Periphrastic Causative Constructions Both
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
    Negative Morphemes Negative affix
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
    Polar Questions Interrogative verb morphology
    Predicative Possession 'Have'
    Predicative Adjectives Mixed
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Relativization on Obliques Gap
    Lexicon
    Numeral Bases Decimal