1. Family: Tai-Kadai
  2. Genus: Kam-Tai

Lao

WALS coordinates: 18° N, 103° E

spoken in Laos, Thailand

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Lao
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Laotian
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Morphology
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation
    Nominal Categories
    Coding of Nominal Plurality No plural
    The Associative Plural Unique periphrastic associative plural
    Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
    Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
    The Past Tense No past tense
    The Future Tense No inflectional future
    The Perfect From 'finish', 'already'
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
    Order of Subject and Verb SV
    Order of Object and Verb VO
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
    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 Adjective-Degree word
    Position of Polar Question Particles Final
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not 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
    Negative Morphemes Negative word, unclear if verb or particle
    Polar Questions Question particle
    Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
    Lexicon
    Hand and Arm Different
    Finger and Hand Different
    Tea Others
    Other
    Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Affective meanings