Otomí (Mezquital)

WALS coordinates: 20° 10′ N, 99° 10′ W

spoken in Mexico

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Otomi
Routledge:
  • Otomí
Other:
  • Mezquital,
  • Mezquital Otomi,
  • Otomi
ISO 639-3:

Features

Feature Value References  
Phonology
Consonant Inventories Average
Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
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 present
Front Rounded Vowels None
Syllable Structure Complex
Tone Simple tone system
Absence of Common Consonants All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants 'Th' sounds
Morphology
Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 8-9 categories per word
Locus of Marking in the Clause Head marking
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Head marking
Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Head-marking
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly prefixing
Case Syncretism No case marking
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 affixes
The Associative Plural No associative plural
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
Ordinal Numerals One-th, two-th, three-th
Nominal Syntax
Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
Possessive Classification No possessive classification
Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
Verbal Categories
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect prefixes
The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
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 Indirect only
Coding of Evidentiality Separate particle
Word Order
Order of Subject, Object and Verb VOS
Order of Subject and Verb VS
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 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 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 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 3sg forms
Order of Person Markers on the Verb A precedes P
Reciprocal Constructions No reciprocals
Passive Constructions Absent
Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Neither
Negative Morphemes Negative particle
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
Polar Questions Question particle
Predicative Possession Topic
Predicative Adjectives Mixed
Nominal and Locational Predication Different
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
Complex Sentences
'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is expressed overtly
'When' Clauses Balanced
Reason Clauses Balanced
Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
Lexicon
Numeral Bases Hybrid vigesimal-decimal
M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns