Kpelle

WALS coordinates: 7° N, 10° W

spoken in Liberia

Find examples here.

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Kpelle
Routledge:
  • Kpel(l)e
Other:
  • Guerze,
  • Kpele
ISO 639-3:

Features

ID Feature Value Area References  
1A Consonant Inventories Average Phonology
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2A Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14) Phonology
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3A Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average Phonology
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4A Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In both plosives and fricatives Phonology
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5A Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/ Phonology
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6A Uvular Consonants None Phonology
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7A Glottalized Consonants Implosives only Phonology
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8A Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals Phonology
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11A Front Rounded Vowels None Phonology
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12A Syllable Structure Moderately complex Phonology
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13A Tone Complex tone system Phonology
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18A Absence of Common Consonants All present Phonology
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19A Presence of Uncommon Consonants Labial-velars Phonology
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33A Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix Nominal Categories
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36A The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural Nominal Categories
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examples
53A Ordinal Numerals One, two, three Nominal Categories
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55A Numeral Classifiers Absent Nominal Categories
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63A Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with' Nominal Syntax
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70A The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives Verbal Categories
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71A The Prohibitive Normal imperative + normal negative Verbal Categories
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72A Imperative-Hortative Systems Both types of system Verbal Categories
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73A The Optative Inflectional optative absent Verbal Categories
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86A Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun Word Order
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87A Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective Word Order
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88A Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative Word Order
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89A Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral Word Order
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117A Predicative Possession Locational Simple Clauses
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118A Predicative Adjectives Mixed Simple Clauses
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119A Nominal and Locational Predication Different Simple Clauses
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120A Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible Simple Clauses
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