Rapanui

WALS coordinates: 27° 7′ 12.00″ S, 109° 22′ 12.00″ W

spoken in Chile

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Rapanui
Routledge:
  • Easter Island
Other:
  • Easter Island
ISO 639-3:

Features

Feature Value References
Phonology
Consonant Inventories Small
Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low
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
The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal
Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
Front Rounded Vowels None
Syllable Structure Simple
Tone No tones
Fixed Stress Locations Penultimate
Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
Rhythm Types Undetermined
Absence of Common Consonants All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
Morphology
Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively isolating
Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 8-9 categories per word
Locus of Marking in the Clause Double marking
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Dependent marking
Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation
Reduplication Full reduplication only
Case Syncretism No case marking
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
Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural word
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always optional
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem + pronominal plural affix
The Associative Plural Unique periphrastic associative plural
Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
Indefinite Articles Indefinite word same as 'one'
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns Inclusive/exclusive
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-way contrast
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related to 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 No morphological case-marking
Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
Numeral Classifiers Absent
Nominal Syntax
Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
Possessive Classification Two classes
Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Adjectives and relative clauses collapsed
Verbal Categories
Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
The Future Tense No inflectional future
The Perfect Other perfect
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes No tense-aspect inflection
The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
The Prohibitive Normal imperative + normal negative
Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
The Optative Inflectional optative absent
Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
Epistemic Possibility Other
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
Verbal Number and Suppletion None
Word Order
Order of Subject, Object and Verb VSO
Order of Subject and Verb VS
Order of Object and Verb VO
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 Noun-Demonstrative
Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
Position of Polar Question Particles Initial
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 Neutral
Expression of Pronominal Subjects Optional pronouns in subject position
Verbal Person Marking No person marking
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No person marking
Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Indirect-object construction
Reciprocal Constructions Identical to reflexive
Passive Constructions Absent
Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
Negative Morphemes Negative word, unclear if verb or particle
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
Polar Questions Question particle
Comparative Constructions Locational
Complex Sentences
Relativization on Subjects Gap
'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
Purpose Clauses Deranked
'When' Clauses Balanced
Reason Clauses Deranked
Lexicon
Hand and Arm Different
Finger and Hand Different
Numeral Bases Decimal
M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns