1. Family: Kutenai
  2. Genus: Kutenai

Kutenai

WALS coordinates: 49° 30′ N, 116° W

spoken in Canada, United States

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Kutenai
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Kootenai
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Moderately large
    Vowel Quality Inventories Small (2-4)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio High
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives No voicing constrast
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
    Uvular Consonants Uvular stops and continuants
    Glottalized Consonants Ejectives and glottalized resonants
    Lateral Consonants No /l/, but lateral obstruents
    The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Complex
    Tone No tones
    Fixed Stress Locations Penultimate
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Lexical stress
    Rhythm Types Trochaic
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Case + referentiality
    Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 4-5 categories per word
    Locus of Marking in the Clause Double marking
    Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Head marking
    Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly suffixing
    Reduplication No productive 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 Plural prefix
    Occurrence of Nominal Plurality Only human nouns, obligatory
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
    The Associative Plural No associative plural
    Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
    Indefinite Articles No indefinite, but definite article
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection 'We' the same as 'I'
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
    Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
    Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
    Person Marking on Adpositions No adpositions
    Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Distributive Numerals No distributive numerals
    Numeral Classifiers Absent
    Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally different
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Exists
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Adjectives and relative clauses collapsed
    Adjectives without Nouns Without marking
    Action Nominal Constructions No action nominals
    Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
    The Past Tense No past tense
    The Future Tense Inflectional future exists
    The Perfect No perfect
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    Situational Possibility Other kinds of markers
    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 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 No adpositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
    Order of Adjective and Noun Only internally-headed relative clauses
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
    Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Internally headed
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
    Position of Polar Question Particles Initial
    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 Relative Clause and Noun Other
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun Other
    Simple Clauses
    Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject clitics on variable host
    Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking Zero in all 3rd person forms
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb A precedes P
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Secondary-object construction
    Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
    Passive Constructions Present
    Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
    Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; both bases
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
    Negative Morphemes Negative particle
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
    Polar Questions Question particle
    Complex Sentences
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is expressed overtly
    Lexicon
    Hand and Arm Different
    Finger and Hand Different
    Numeral Bases Decimal
    M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
    N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns