| Phonology |
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Consonant Inventories
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Small |
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Vowel Quality Inventories
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Large (7-14) |
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Consonant-Vowel Ratio
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Low |
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Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives
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No voicing constrast |
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Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems
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Other |
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Uvular Consonants
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None |
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Glottalized Consonants
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No glottalized consonants |
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Lateral Consonants
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/l/, no obstruent laterals |
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Front Rounded Vowels
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None |
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Syllable Structure
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Complex |
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Tone
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No tones |
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Absence of Common Consonants
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All present |
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Presence of Uncommon Consonants
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None |
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| Morphology |
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Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology
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Weakly suffixing |
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Reduplication
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Productive full and partial reduplication |
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| Nominal Categories |
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Coding of Nominal Plurality
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No plural |
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Indefinite Articles
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Indefinite word distinct from 'one' |
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Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives
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Three-way contrast |
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Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives
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Different stem |
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Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives
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Unrelated |
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Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns
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Multiple politeness distinctions |
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Position of Case Affixes
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No case affixes or adpositional clitics |
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Numeral Classifiers
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Obligatory |
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Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes
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Possessive suffixes |
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| Nominal Syntax |
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Obligatory Possessive Inflection
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Absent |
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Possessive Classification
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Two classes |
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| Verbal Categories |
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Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes
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Mixed type |
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Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality
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No grammatical evidentials |
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Coding of Evidentiality
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No grammatical evidentials |
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| Word Order |
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Order of Subject, Object and Verb
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SVO |
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Order of Subject and Verb
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SV |
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Order of Object and Verb
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VO |
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Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb
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VOX |
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Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase
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Prepositions |
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Order of Genitive and Noun
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No dominant order |
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Order of Adjective and Noun
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Noun-Adjective |
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Order of Demonstrative and Noun
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Noun-Demonstrative |
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Order of Numeral and Noun
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Noun-Numeral |
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Order of Relative Clause and Noun
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Noun-Relative clause |
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Order of Degree Word and Adjective
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No dominant order |
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Position of Polar Question Particles
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No question particle |
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Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions
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Mixed |
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Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause
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Initial subordinator word |
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Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase
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VO and Prepositions |
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Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun
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VO and NRel |
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Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun
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VO and NAdj |
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| Simple Clauses |
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Negative Morphemes
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Negative particle |
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Polar Questions
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Interrogative intonation only |
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| Lexicon |
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Hand and Arm
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Identical |
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Finger and Hand
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Different |
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Numeral Bases
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Decimal |
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Tea
|
Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te |
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