1. Family: Nilo-Saharan
  2. Subfamily: Eastern Sudanic
  3. Genus: Surmic

Murle

WALS coordinates: 6° 30′ N, 33° 30′ E

spoken in Sudan

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Average
      Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low
      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 Implosives only
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone Simple tone system
      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 'Th' sounds
      Morphology
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly suffixing
      Case Syncretism Core cases only
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Syncretic
      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 suffix
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person stem + pronominal plural affix
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection 'We' the same as 'I'
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
      Number of Cases 4 cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Subtractive-quantitatively asymmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
      Verbal Categories
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Mixed type
      The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
      Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
      Verbal Number and Suppletion Singular-plural pairs, suppletion
      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 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 Polar Question Particles No question particle
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not 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 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 (marked nominative)
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Nominative - accusative (standard)
      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
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-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
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
      Polar Questions Interrogative intonation only
      Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Complex Sentences
      'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is expressed overtly
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Different
      Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories 5
      Number of Basic Colour Categories 6-6.5
      Green and Blue Green/blue
      Red and Yellow Red vs. yellow