1. Family: Indo-European
  2. Genus: Baltic

Lithuanian

WALS coordinates: 55° N, 24° E

spoken in Lithuania

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Large
      Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In both plosives and fricatives
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
      Lateral Consonants Laterals, but no /l/, no obstruent laterals
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Complex
      Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Unbounded: Stress can be anywhere
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Lexical stress
      Rhythm Types Undetermined
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
      Nominal Categories
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
      Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Multiple politeness distinctions
      Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
      Number of Cases 6-7 cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Mixed
      Ordinal Numerals First, second, three-th
      Distributive Numerals Marked by preceding word
      Nominal Syntax
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
      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 Neither type of system
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for both possibility and necessity
      Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Indirect only
      Coding of Evidentiality Verbal affix or clitic
      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 Genitive-Noun
      Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
      Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      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 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 AdjN
      Simple Clauses
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
      Reciprocal Constructions Mixed
      Negative Morphemes Negative affix
      Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Identical
      Finger and Hand Different
      Tea Others