Pirahã

WALS coordinates: 7° S, 62° W

spoken in Brazil

Find examples here.

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Mura
Routledge:
  • Pirahán
Other:
  • Mure-Pirahã
ISO 639-3:

Features

ID Feature Value Area References  
1A Consonant Inventories Moderately small Phonology
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2A Vowel Quality Inventories Small (2-4) Phonology
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3A Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low Phonology
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4A Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In plosives alone Phonology
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5A Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other Phonology
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6A Uvular Consonants None Phonology
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7A Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants Phonology
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8A Lateral Consonants No laterals Phonology
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9A The Velar Nasal No velar nasal Phonology
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10A Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent Phonology
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11A Front Rounded Vowels None Phonology
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12A Syllable Structure Simple Phonology
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13A Tone Simple tone system Phonology
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14A Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress Phonology
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15A Weight-Sensitive Stress Right-oriented: One of the last three Phonology
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16A Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Combined Phonology
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18A Absence of Common Consonants No nasals Phonology
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19A Presence of Uncommon Consonants None Phonology
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20A Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative Morphology
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21A Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case Morphology
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21B Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection monoexponential TAM Morphology
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22A Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 8-9 categories per word Morphology
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23A Locus of Marking in the Clause No marking Morphology
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24A Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases No marking Morphology
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25A Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Zero-marking Morphology
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examples
25B Zero Marking of A and P Arguments Zero-marking Morphology
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26A Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing Morphology
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27A Reduplication No productive reduplication Morphology
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28A Case Syncretism No case marking Morphology
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29A Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking No subject person/number marking Morphology
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30A Number of Genders Four Nominal Categories
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31A Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Sex-based Nominal Categories
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32A Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic Nominal Categories
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33A Coding of Nominal Plurality No plural Nominal Categories
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34A Occurrence of Nominal Plurality No nominal plural Nominal Categories
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35A Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Number-indifferent pronouns Nominal Categories
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37A Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article Nominal Categories
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38A Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article Nominal Categories
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39A Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No 'we' Nominal Categories
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examples
40A Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking Nominal Categories
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41A Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast Nominal Categories
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examples
42A Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical Nominal Categories
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examples
43A Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related to remote demonstratives Nominal Categories
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examples
44A Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person only, but also non-singular Nominal Categories
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45A Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction Nominal Categories
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46A Indefinite Pronouns Mixed Nominal Categories
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47A Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated Nominal Categories
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48A Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking Nominal Categories
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49A Number of Cases Exclusively borderline case-marking Nominal Categories
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50A Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical Nominal Categories
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51A Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes Nominal Categories
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52A Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation Nominal Categories
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examples
55A Numeral Classifiers Absent Nominal Categories
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58A Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent Nominal Syntax
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58B Number of Possessive Nouns None reported Nominal Syntax
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59A Possessive Classification No possessive classification Nominal Syntax
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62A Action Nominal Constructions Sentential Nominal Syntax
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examples
64A Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity Nominal Syntax
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65A Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking Verbal Categories
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66A The Past Tense No past tense Verbal Categories
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67A The Future Tense No inflectional future Verbal Categories
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68A The Perfect No perfect Verbal Categories
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69A Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes Verbal Categories
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70A The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives Verbal Categories
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72A Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system Verbal Categories
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73A The Optative Inflectional optative absent Verbal Categories
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75A Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs Verbal Categories
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77A Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Direct and indirect Verbal Categories
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78A Coding of Evidentiality Verbal affix or clitic Verbal Categories
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79A Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None Verbal Categories
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79B Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) Verbal Categories
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80A Verbal Number and Suppletion None Verbal Categories
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81A Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV Word Order
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82A Order of Subject and Verb SV Word Order
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83A Order of Object and Verb OV Word Order
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84A Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb XOV Word Order
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85A Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions Word Order
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86A Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun Word Order
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87A Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective Word Order
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88A Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative Word Order
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89A Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral Word Order
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92A Position of Polar Question Particles Final Word Order
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93A Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase Word Order
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95A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase OV and Postpositions Word Order
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97A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and NAdj Word Order
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98A Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral Simple Clauses
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examples
99A Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral Simple Clauses
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examples
100A Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative Simple Clauses
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102A Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments Simple Clauses
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103A Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No zero realization Simple Clauses
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104A Order of Person Markers on the Verb A precedes P Simple Clauses
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105A Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction Simple Clauses
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106A Reciprocal Constructions No reciprocals Simple Clauses
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107A Passive Constructions Absent Simple Clauses
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108A Antipassive Constructions No antipassive Simple Clauses
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108B Productivity of the Antipassive Construction no antipassive Simple Clauses
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109A Applicative Constructions No applicative construction Simple Clauses
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109B Other Roles of Applied Objects No applicative construction Simple Clauses
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110A Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential Simple Clauses
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111A Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound Simple Clauses
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112A Negative Morphemes Negative affix Simple Clauses
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113A Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric Simple Clauses
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114A Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable Simple Clauses
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116A Polar Questions Mixture of previous two types Simple Clauses
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examples
117A Predicative Possession 'Have' Simple Clauses
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121A Comparative Constructions Conjoined Simple Clauses
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122A Relativization on Subjects Non-reduction Complex Sentences
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examples
123A Relativization on Obliques Not possible Complex Sentences
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124A 'Want' Complement Subjects Desiderative verbal affix Complex Sentences
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125A Purpose Clauses Balanced/deranked Complex Sentences
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126A 'When' Clauses Balanced Complex Sentences
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127A Reason Clauses Balanced Complex Sentences
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128A Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced Complex Sentences
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examples
131A Numeral Bases Restricted Lexicon
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examples
132A Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories 4 Lexicon
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133A Number of Basic Colour Categories 3-4 Lexicon
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134A Green and Blue Green/blue Lexicon
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135A Red and Yellow Red/yellow Lexicon
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136A M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns Lexicon
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136B M in First Person Singular No m in first person singular Lexicon
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137A N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns Lexicon
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137B M in Second Person Singular No m in second person singular Lexicon
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142A Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Other or none Other
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143A Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb [V-Neg] Word Order
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143E Preverbal Negative Morphemes None Word Order
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143F Postverbal Negative Morphemes [V-Neg] Word Order
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143G Minor morphological means of signaling negation None Word Order
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144A Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb MorphNeg Word Order
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144L The Position of Negative Morphemes in SOV Languages SO[V-Neg] Word Order
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144P NegSOV Order No NegSOV Word Order
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144Q SNegOV Order No SNegOV Word Order
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144R SONegV Order No SONegV Word Order
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144S SOVNeg Order Suffix&NoDoubleNeg Word Order
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