1. Family: Penutian
  2. Genus: Sahaptian

Nez Perce

WALS coordinates: 46° N, 116° W

spoken in United States

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Nez Perce
Routledge:
    Other:
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Moderately large
      Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives No voicing constrast
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
      Uvular Consonants Uvular stops and continuants
      Glottalized Consonants Ejectives and glottalized resonants
      Lateral Consonants /l/ and lateral obstruent
      The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
      Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Complex
      Tone No tones
      Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Not predictable
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Lexical stress
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Equal prefixing and suffixing
      Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
      Case Syncretism No syncretism
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders None
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems No gender
      Systems of Gender Assignment No gender
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection 'We' the same as 'I'
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
      Person Marking on Adpositions No adpositions
      Number of Cases 10 or more cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
      Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive prefixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Exists
      Possessive Classification No possessive classification
      Action Nominal Constructions Possessive-Accusative
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Differentiation
      Verbal Categories
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Affixes on verbs
      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
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb No dominant order
      Order of Subject and Verb No dominant order
      Order of Object and Verb No dominant order
      Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb No dominant order
      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 Numeral-Noun
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
      Position of Polar Question Particles Initial
      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 Other
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun Other
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun Other
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Tripartite
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Tripartite
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Split
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
      Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No zero realization
      Order of Person Markers on the Verb A precedes P
      Passive Constructions Present
      Antipassive Constructions Oblique patient
      Applicative Constructions Benefactive and other; both bases
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative particle
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Different
      Finger and Hand Identical
      Numeral Bases Decimal
      Other
      Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Other or none