| Phonology |
|---|
|
Consonant Inventories
|
Average |
|
|
Vowel Quality Inventories
|
Small (2-4) |
|
|
Consonant-Vowel Ratio
|
Moderately high |
|
|
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
|
No glottalized consonants |
|
|
Lateral Consonants
|
/l/, no obstruent laterals |
|
|
Front Rounded Vowels
|
None |
|
|
Syllable Structure
|
Moderately complex |
|
|
Tone
|
No tones |
|
|
Absence of Common Consonants
|
All present |
|
|
Presence of Uncommon Consonants
|
None |
|
| Morphology |
|---|
|
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology
|
Strongly suffixing |
|
| Nominal Categories |
|---|
|
Coding of Nominal Plurality
|
Plural clitic |
|
|
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality
|
Only human nouns, obligatory |
|
|
The Associative Plural
|
Associative same as additive plural |
|
|
Position of Case Affixes
|
Case suffixes |
|
|
Numeral Classifiers
|
Obligatory |
|
|
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes
|
No possessive affixes |
|
| Verbal Categories |
|---|
|
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes
|
Tense-aspect suffixes |
|
|
The Optative
|
Inflectional optative absent |
|
| Word Order |
|---|
|
Order of Subject, Object and Verb
|
SOV |
|
|
Order of Subject and Verb
|
SV |
|
|
Order of Object and Verb
|
OV |
|
|
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase
|
Postpositions |
|
|
Order of Genitive and Noun
|
Genitive-Noun |
|
|
Order of Adjective and Noun
|
Adjective-Noun |
|
|
Order of Demonstrative and Noun
|
Demonstrative-Noun |
|
|
Order of Numeral and Noun
|
Noun-Numeral |
|
|
Order of Relative Clause and Noun
|
Relative clause-Noun |
|
|
Order of Degree Word and Adjective
|
Degree word-Adjective |
|
|
Position of Polar Question Particles
|
Final |
|
|
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions
|
Not initial interrogative phrase |
|
|
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause
|
Mixed |
|
|
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase
|
OV and Postpositions |
|
|
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun
|
OV and RelN |
|
|
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun
|
OV and AdjN |
|
| Simple Clauses |
|---|
|
Negative Morphemes
|
Negative affix |
|
|
Polar Questions
|
Question particle |
|
| Lexicon |
|---|
|
Tea
|
Words derived from Sinitic cha |
|
