1. Family: Wakashan
  2. Genus: Southern Wakashan

Makah

WALS coordinates: 48° 20′ N, 124° 40′ W

spoken in United States

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio High
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Missing /g/
      Uvular Consonants Uvular stops and continuants
      Glottalized Consonants Ejectives only
      Lateral Consonants /l/ and lateral obstruent
      The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Complex
      Tone No tones
      Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Left-edge: First or second
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Long vowel
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation
      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 clitic
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
      The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-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 Special
      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
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Action Nominal Constructions No action nominals
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect 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 Second singular and second plural
      The Prohibitive Special imperative + normal negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Direct and indirect
      Coding of Evidentiality Verbal affix or clitic
      Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
      Verbal Number and Suppletion None
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb VSO
      Order of Subject and Verb VS
      Order of Object and Verb VO
      Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb VOX
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase No dominant order
      Order of Genitive and Noun No dominant order
      Order of Adjective and Noun No dominant order
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
      Order of Numeral and Noun No dominant order
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Mixed
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
      Position of Polar Question Particles Second position
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Initial interrogative phrase
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Other
      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 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 some 3sg forms
      Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P are fused
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Asymmetric
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Complex Sentences
      'Want' Complement Subjects Desiderative verbal affix