Navajo

WALS coordinates: 36° 10′ N, 108° W

spoken in United States

Find examples here.

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Navajo
Routledge:
  • Navaho
Other:
  • Navaho
ISO 639-3:

Features

ID Feature Value Area References  
1A Consonant Inventories Moderately large Phonology
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2A Vowel Quality Inventories Small (2-4) Phonology
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3A Consonant-Vowel Ratio High Phonology
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4A Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In fricatives alone Phonology
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5A Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other Phonology
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6A Uvular Consonants None Phonology
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7A Glottalized Consonants Ejectives only Phonology
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8A Lateral Consonants /l/ and lateral obstruent Phonology
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9A The Velar Nasal No velar nasal Phonology
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10A Vowel Nasalization Contrast present Phonology
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11A Front Rounded Vowels None Phonology
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12A Syllable Structure Moderately complex Phonology
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13A Tone Simple tone system Phonology
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14A Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress Phonology
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18A Absence of Common Consonants All present Phonology
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19A Presence of Uncommon Consonants None Phonology
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20A Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative Morphology
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26A Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strong prefixing Morphology
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27A Reduplication No productive reduplication Morphology
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28A Case Syncretism No case marking Morphology
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29A Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic Morphology
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33A Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix Nominal Categories
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35A Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem + nominal plural affix Nominal Categories
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39A Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive Nominal Categories
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40A Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive Nominal Categories
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41A Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Five (or more)-way contrast Nominal Categories
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examples
42A Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical Nominal Categories
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examples
44A Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person singular only Nominal Categories
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46A Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based Nominal Categories
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47A Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated Nominal Categories
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48A Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns and nouns Nominal Categories
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49A Number of Cases No morphological case-marking Nominal Categories
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50A Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking Nominal Categories
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51A Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics Nominal Categories
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52A Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation Nominal Categories
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examples
53A Ordinal Numerals First/one-th, two-th, three-th Nominal Categories
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55A Numeral Classifiers Absent Nominal Categories
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57A Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive prefixes Nominal Categories
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62A Action Nominal Constructions No action nominals Nominal Syntax
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63A Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with' Nominal Syntax
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64A Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity Nominal Syntax
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69A Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect prefixes Verbal Categories
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70A The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives Verbal Categories
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71A The Prohibitive Special imperative + special negative Verbal Categories
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72A Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system Verbal Categories
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73A The Optative Inflectional optative absent Verbal Categories
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74A Situational Possibility Affixes on verbs Verbal Categories
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75A Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs Verbal Categories
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76A Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity Verbal Categories
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77A Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Indirect only Verbal Categories
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78A Coding of Evidentiality Separate particle Verbal Categories
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79A Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None Verbal Categories
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79B Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) Verbal Categories
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80A Verbal Number and Suppletion Singular-dual-plural triples, no suppletion Verbal Categories
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examples
81A Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV Word Order
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82A Order of Subject and Verb SV Word Order
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83A Order of Object and Verb OV Word Order
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84A Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb OXV Word Order
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85A Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions Word Order
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86A Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun Word Order
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87A Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective Word Order
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88A Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun Word Order
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89A Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun Word Order
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90A Order of Relative Clause and Noun Internally headed Word Order
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90D Internally-headed relative clauses Internally-headed relative clause dominant Word Order
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91A Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective Word Order
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92A Position of Polar Question Particles In either of two positions Word Order
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93A Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase Word Order
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94A Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word Word Order
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95A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase OV and Postpositions Word Order
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96A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun Other Word Order
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97A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and NAdj Word Order
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98A Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral Simple Clauses
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examples
100A Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative Simple Clauses
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101A Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb Simple Clauses
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102A Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments Simple Clauses
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103A Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking Zero in all 3rd person forms Simple Clauses
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104A Order of Person Markers on the Verb P precedes A Simple Clauses
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107A Passive Constructions Present Simple Clauses
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110A Periphrastic Causative Constructions Sequential but no purposive Simple Clauses
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111A Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Neither Simple Clauses
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112A Negative Morphemes Negative particle Simple Clauses
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113A Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Asymmetric Simple Clauses
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114A Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat Simple Clauses
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115A Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present Simple Clauses
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116A Polar Questions Question particle Simple Clauses
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117A Predicative Possession Conjunctional Simple Clauses
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118A Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding Simple Clauses
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119A Nominal and Locational Predication Different Simple Clauses
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120A Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible Simple Clauses
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121A Comparative Constructions Locational Simple Clauses
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124A 'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is expressed overtly Complex Sentences
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129A Hand and Arm Different Lexicon
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examples
130A Finger and Hand Identical Lexicon
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130B Cultural Categories of Languages with Identity of 'Finger' and 'Hand' Full-fledged farmers Lexicon
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131A Numeral Bases Decimal Lexicon
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examples
143A Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb NegV Word Order
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143E Preverbal Negative Morphemes NegV Word Order
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143F Postverbal Negative Morphemes None Word Order
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143G Minor morphological means of signaling negation None Word Order
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144A Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb More than one position Word Order
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144L The Position of Negative Morphemes in SOV Languages More than one construction Word Order
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144M Multiple Negative Constructions in SOV Languages NegSOV/SNegOV/SONegV Word Order
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144P NegSOV Order NoDoubleNeg Word Order
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144Q SNegOV Order NoDoubleNeg Word Order
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144R SONegV Order Word&NoDoubleNeg Word Order
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144S SOVNeg Order NoSOVNeg Word Order
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