1. Family: Australian
  2. Genus: Pama-Nyungan

Pitjantjatjara

WALS coordinates: 26° S, 130° E

spoken in Australia

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
    Routledge:
      Other:
      • Pitjantjara = Western Desert
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Average
      Vowel Quality Inventories Small (2-4)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high
      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 /l/, no obstruent laterals
      The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone No tones
      Fixed Stress Locations Initial
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
      Rhythm Types Trochaic
      Absence of Common Consonants No fricatives
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Case Syncretism Core cases only
      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
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number affixes
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related to non-remote demonstratives
      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
      Number of Cases 10 or more cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Qualitatively asymmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes Postpositional clitics
      Nominal Syntax
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
      Verbal Categories
      The Morphological Imperative Second person number-neutral
      The Prohibitive Normal imperative + normal negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of 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 Indirect only
      Coding of Evidentiality Separate particle
      Word Order
      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 Noun-Adjective
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
      Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Mixed
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
      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 Other
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and NAdj
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Ergative - absolutive
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Nominative - accusative (standard)
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
      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 Both orders of A and P occur
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Both
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin
      Predicative Possession Conjunctional
      Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Different
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Gap
      Relativization on Obliques Gap
      'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
      Purpose Clauses Deranked
      'When' Clauses Deranked
      Reason Clauses Deranked
      Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Different
      Finger and Hand Identical
      Numeral Bases Restricted