1. Family: other
  2. Genus: Creoles and Pidgins

Ndyuka

WALS coordinates: 5° N, 54° 30′ W

spoken in French Guiana, Suriname

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Djuka
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Dyuka,
    • Djuka
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Moderately small
    Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
    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 No glottalized consonants
    Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
    The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
    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 or coda consonant
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
    Morphology
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation
    Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
    Case Syncretism No case marking
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking No subject person/number marking
    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 No plural
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
    The Associative Plural Unique periphrastic associative plural
    Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
    Indefinite Articles Indefinite word same as 'one'
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Different stem
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
    Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
    Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
    Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
    Numeral Classifiers Absent
    Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally different
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Genitives and adjectives collapsed
    Adjectives without Nouns Marked by following word
    Verbal Categories
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
    The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
    The Prohibitive Normal imperative + normal negative
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
    Epistemic Possibility Other
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
    Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
    Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
    Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
    Verbal Number and Suppletion None
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
    Order of Subject and Verb SV
    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 No dominant order
    Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
    Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective No dominant order
    Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions 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 AdjN
    Simple Clauses
    Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Neutral
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Obligatory pronouns in subject position
    Verbal Person Marking No person marking
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No person marking
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
    Passive Constructions Absent
    Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
    Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
    Periphrastic Causative Constructions Sequential but no purposive
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Neither
    Negative Morphemes Negative word, unclear if verb or particle
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
    Polar Questions Interrogative intonation only
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Relativization on Obliques Gap
    Purpose Clauses Balanced/deranked
    'When' Clauses Balanced
    Reason Clauses Balanced
    Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
    Lexicon
    Numeral Bases Decimal
    Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories 6
    Number of Basic Colour Categories 6-6.5
    Green and Blue Green vs. blue
    Red and Yellow Red vs. yellow