1. Family: Afro-Asiatic
  2. Subfamily: Chadic
  3. Genus: Biu-Mandara

Margi

WALS coordinates: 11° N, 13° E

spoken in Nigeria

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Moderately large
      Vowel Quality Inventories Small (2-4)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio High
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In both plosives and fricatives
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants Implosives only
      Lateral Consonants /l/ and lateral obstruent
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Tone Simple tone system
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly suffixing
      Nominal Categories
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural clitic
      The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural
      Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
      Indefinite Articles No indefinite, but definite article
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Different stem
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
      Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
      Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
      Distributive Numerals Marked by reduplication
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, with interrogative
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification Two classes
      Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Highly differentiated
      Adjectives without Nouns Without marking
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
      The Past Tense No past tense
      The Future Tense Inflectional future exists
      The Perfect Other perfect
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Mixed type
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
      Order of Subject and Verb SV
      Order of Object and Verb VO
      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
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
      Position of Polar Question Particles Final
      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
      Negative Morphemes Negative particle
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Possession Conjunctional
      Predicative Adjectives Mixed
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
      Comparative Constructions Exceed