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

Nandi

WALS coordinates: 0° 15′ N, 35° E

spoken in Kenya

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Nandi
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Kalenjin
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Small
    Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
    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 /l/, no obstruent laterals
    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 Tonal/concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
    Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 4-5 categories per word
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Equal prefixing and suffixing
    Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
    Nominal Categories
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
    Definite Articles Definite affix
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Different stem
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
    Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
    Position of Case Affixes Case tone
    Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
    Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Adjectives and relative clauses collapsed
    Adjectives without Nouns Marked by preceding word
    Verbal Categories
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Mixed type
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    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 Demonstrative suffix
    Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
    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
    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 Zero in all 3rd person forms
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb A precedes P
    Passive Constructions Absent
    Negative Morphemes Negative affix
    Polar Questions Question particle
    Comparative Constructions Exceed
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced