Nahuatl (Tetelcingo)

WALS coordinates: 19° 40′ 12.00″ N, 99° W

spoken in Mexico

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Nahuatl
Routledge:
  • Nawa
Other:
  • Tetelcingo Nahuatl,
  • Tetelcingo Aztec
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 No voicing constrast
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
Uvular Consonants None
Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
Lateral Consonants No laterals
Front Rounded Vowels None
Syllable Structure Moderately complex
Tone No tones
Fixed Stress Locations Penultimate
Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
Absence of Common Consonants All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
Morphology
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Equal prefixing and suffixing
Case Syncretism No case marking
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
Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem + nominal plural affix
Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related for all demonstratives
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Multiple politeness distinctions
Indefinite Pronouns Interrogative-based
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns and nouns
Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
Numeral Classifiers Absent
Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally different
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive prefixes
Nominal Syntax
Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Highly differentiated
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
Verbal Categories
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
The Prohibitive Normal imperative + normal negative
Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
The Optative Inflectional optative absent
Situational Possibility Other kinds of markers
Epistemic Possibility Other
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Indirect only
Coding of Evidentiality Separate particle
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect Tense and aspect
Verbal Number and Suppletion None
Word Order
Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
Order of Subject and Verb No dominant order
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-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 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 NAdj
Simple Clauses
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
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
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction
Passive Constructions Present
Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
Negative Morphemes Negative particle
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation No predicate negation
Predicative Adjectives Mixed
Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
Complex Sentences
'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is expressed overtly
Purpose Clauses Balanced/deranked
'When' Clauses Balanced
Reason Clauses Balanced
Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
Lexicon
Hand and Arm Identical
Finger and Hand Different
Numeral Bases Decimal