Meithei

WALS coordinates: 24° 45′ N, 94° E

spoken in India

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Meithei
Routledge:
  • Manipuri
Other:
  • Manipuri,
  • Bishnupriya
ISO 639-3:

Features

Feature Value References
Phonology
Consonant Inventories Moderately large
Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone
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 /l/, no obstruent laterals
The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal
Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
Front Rounded Vowels None
Syllable Structure Moderately complex
Tone Simple tone system
Absence of Common Consonants All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
Morphology
Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 4-5 categories per word
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 Weakly suffixing
Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
Case Syncretism No syncretism
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
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person stem + nominal plural affix
The Associative Plural Unique affixal associative plural
Definite Articles Demonstrative word used as definite article
Indefinite Articles Indefinite word same as 'one'
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related for all demonstratives
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
Number of Cases 6-7 cases
Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
Position of Case Affixes Postpositional clitics
Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
Ordinal Numerals First/one-th, two-th, three-th
Distributive Numerals Marked by reduplication
Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, without interrogative
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive prefixes
Nominal Syntax
Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
Possessive Classification No possessive classification
Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Adjectives and relative clauses collapsed
Action Nominal Constructions No action nominals
Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
Verbal Categories
Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
The Past Tense No past tense
The Future Tense No inflectional future
The Perfect From 'finish', 'already'
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
The Morphological Imperative Second person number-neutral
The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative
Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
The Optative Inflectional optative present
Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
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 and Verb SV
Order of Object and Verb OV
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
Order of Adjective and Noun No dominant order
Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
Order of Relative Clause and Noun Relative clause-Noun
Position of Polar Question Particles Final
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Mixed
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 OV and RelN
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun Other
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
Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from 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 affix
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin and A/Cat
Polar Questions Question particle
Predicative Possession Genitive
Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
Nominal and Locational Predication Different
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
Complex Sentences
Relativization on Subjects Gap
Relativization on Obliques Gap
'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
Purpose Clauses Deranked
'When' Clauses Deranked
Reason Clauses Deranked
Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
Lexicon
Numeral Bases Hybrid vigesimal-decimal
M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
Other
Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Other or none