1. Family: Siouan
  2. Genus: Siouan

Lakhota

WALS coordinates: 43° 50′ N, 101° 50′ W

spoken in United States

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
    Routledge:
      Other:
      • Lakota (Teton),
      • Lakota, Dakota, Teton,
      • Lakhota (Teton),
      • Teton,
      • Lakota
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Moderately large
      Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In fricatives alone
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants Ejectives only
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
      Vowel Nasalization Contrast present
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Complex
      Tone No tones
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Isolating/concatenative
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
      Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 10-11 categories per word
      Locus of Marking in the Clause Head marking
      Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Head marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Head-marking
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly prefixing
      Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
      Case Syncretism No case marking
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
      Nominal Categories
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural word
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number affixes
      The Associative Plural No associative plural
      Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
      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 Three-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 Interrogative-based
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
      Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
      Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
      Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
      Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive prefixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification Two classes
      Action Nominal Constructions No action nominals
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
      The Past Tense No past tense
      The Future Tense No inflectional future
      The Perfect No perfect
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
      The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
      The Prohibitive Normal imperative + normal negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
      Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Indirect only
      Coding of Evidentiality Separate particle
      Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
      Verbal Number and Suppletion None
      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 No dominant order
      Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Mixed
      Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Internally headed
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
      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 Other
      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 Verbal Person Marking Active
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
      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 Both orders of A and P occur
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction
      Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; both bases
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Both
      Negative Morphemes Negative particle
      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 'Have'
      Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Comparative Constructions Conjoined
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Non-reduction
      Relativization on Obliques Non-reduction
      Purpose Clauses Balanced
      'When' Clauses Balanced
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Numeral Bases Decimal
      M-T Pronouns M-T pronouns, paradigmatic
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
      Other
      Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Other or none