Luvale

WALS coordinates: 12° S, 22° E

spoken in Angola

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Lwena
Routledge:
  • Lwena (Luvale)
Other:
  • Lwena
ISO 639-3:

Features

Feature Value References
Phonology
Consonant Inventories Moderately small
Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In fricatives alone
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
Uvular Consonants None
Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
Lateral Consonants Laterals, but no /l/, no obstruent laterals
The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal
Front Rounded Vowels None
Syllable Structure Simple
Tone Simple tone system
Fixed Stress Locations Penultimate
Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
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 No case
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 8-9 categories per word
Locus of Marking in the Clause Head marking
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Dependent marking
Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strong prefixing
Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
Case Syncretism No case marking
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Syncretic
Nominal Categories
Number of Genders Five or more
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Non-sex-based
Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic and formal
Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural prefix
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural
Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related by gender markers
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person only, but also non-singular
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Binary politeness distinction
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
Nominal Syntax
Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
Possessive Classification Two classes
Action Nominal Constructions Possessive-Accusative
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
Verbal Categories
Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
The Past Tense Present, 2-3 remoteness distinctions
The Future Tense Inflectional future exists
The Perfect Other perfect
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect prefixes
The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
The Optative Inflectional optative absent
Epistemic Possibility Other
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 SVO
Order of Subject and Verb SV
Order of Object and Verb VO
Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb VOX
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
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
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 affixes on verb
Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No zero realization
Order of Person Markers on the Verb A precedes P
Reciprocal Constructions Identical to reflexive
Passive Constructions Absent
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 Both
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin and A/Cat
Polar Questions Question particle
Complex Sentences
Relativization on Subjects Gap
'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
Purpose Clauses Deranked
'When' Clauses Balanced/deranked
Reason Clauses Balanced/deranked
Lexicon
Numeral Bases Decimal
M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns