1. Family: Dravidian
  2. Genus: Southern Dravidian

Malayalam

WALS coordinates: 10° N, 76° 30′ E

spoken in India

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Left-edge: First or second
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Long vowel
      Rhythm Types Undetermined
      Morphology
      Reduplication Full reduplication only
      Nominal Categories
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
      The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Different inflection
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related for all demonstratives
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Multiple politeness distinctions
      Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
      Number of Cases 6-7 cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
      Ordinal Numerals First/one-th, two-th, three-th
      Distributive Numerals Marked by reduplication
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, with interrogative
      Nominal Syntax
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
      Verbal Categories
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV
      Order of Subject and Verb SV
      Order of Object and Verb OV
      Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
      Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
      Position of Polar Question Particles Final
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and AdjN
      Simple Clauses
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Optional pronouns in subject position
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Indirect-object construction
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin and A/Cat
      Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Complex Sentences
      Purpose Clauses Deranked
      Reason Clauses Balanced/deranked
      Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Identical
      Finger and Hand Different
      Tea Words derived from Sinitic cha
      Other
      Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Logical meanings