1. Family: Trans-New Guinea
  2. Genus: Madang

Kobon

WALS coordinates: 5° 10′ S, 144° 20′ E

spoken in Papua New Guinea

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Kobon
Routledge:
    Other:
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      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 No glottalized consonants
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      The Velar Nasal No initial velar nasal
      Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone No tones
      Fixed Stress Locations Penultimate
      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
      Locus of Marking in the Clause No marking
      Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases No marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
      Case Syncretism No case marking
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking 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 Plural suffix
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality Only human nouns, obligatory
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
      Definite Articles No definite, but indefinite article
      Indefinite Articles Indefinite word distinct from 'one'
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
      Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
      Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
      Ordinal Numerals None
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive prefixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification Two classes
      Action Nominal Constructions Sentential
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
      Verbal Categories
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      The Prohibitive Normal imperative + normal negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Affixes on verbs
      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
      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 Relative clause-Noun
      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
      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 NAdj
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
      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 Only the A argument
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking Zero in all 3sg forms
      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
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
      Periphrastic Causative Constructions Sequential but no purposive
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Compound but no morphological
      Negative Morphemes Negative affix
      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 Nonverbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
      Comparative Constructions Conjoined
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Gap
      Relativization on Obliques Gap
      'Want' Complement Subjects Desiderative verbal affix
      Purpose Clauses Deranked
      'When' Clauses Balanced
      Reason Clauses Balanced/deranked
      Lexicon
      Numeral Bases Extended body-part system
      M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns