Maori

WALS coordinates: 40° S, 176° E

spoken in New Zealand

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Maori
Routledge:
  • Maori (New Zealand)
Other:
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Small
    Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Low
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives No voicing constrast
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
    Uvular Consonants None
    Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
    Lateral Consonants No laterals
    The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Simple
    Tone No tones
    Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Unbounded: Stress can be anywhere
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Long vowel
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Isolating/concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
    Locus of Marking in the Clause Dependent marking
    Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Dependent marking
    Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Dependent-marking
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation
    Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
    Case Syncretism No case marking
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking No subject person/number marking
    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 word
    Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem + pronominal plural affix
    The Associative Plural Unique periphrastic associative plural
    Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
    Indefinite Articles Indefinite word distinct from 'one'
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related to remote demonstratives
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
    Indefinite Pronouns Mixed
    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
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
    Ordinal Numerals One-th, two-th, three-th
    Distributive Numerals Marked by prefix
    Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally different
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Adjectives and relative clauses collapsed
    Action Nominal Constructions Mixed
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
    Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
    The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
    The Future Tense No inflectional future
    The Perfect Other perfect
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
    The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
    The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
    Epistemic Possibility Other
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
    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 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 Prepositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
    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 Noun-Relative clause
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
    Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle
    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 Nominative - accusative (standard)
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Nominative - accusative (standard)
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Neutral
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Optional pronouns in subject position
    Verbal Person Marking No person marking
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No person marking
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Indirect-object construction
    Passive Constructions Present
    Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
    Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
    Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
    Negative Morphemes Negative word, unclear if verb or particle
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Asymmetric
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin
    Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
    Polar Questions Interrogative intonation only
    Predicative Possession Genitive
    Predicative Adjectives Mixed
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
    Comparative Constructions Conjoined
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Relativization on Obliques Gap
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
    Purpose Clauses Deranked
    'When' Clauses Balanced/deranked
    Reason Clauses Balanced
    Lexicon
    Hand and Arm Identical
    Finger and Hand Different
    Numeral Bases Decimal
    Tea Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te