Samoan

WALS coordinates: 13° 55′ S, 171° 50′ W

spoken in American Samoa, Samoa

Find examples here.

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Samoan
Routledge:
Other:
ISO 639-3:

Features

ID Feature Value Area References  
26A Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Little affixation Morphology
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27A Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication Morphology
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33A Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural word Nominal Categories
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35A Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem + pronominal plural affix Nominal Categories
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37A Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative Nominal Categories
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38A Indefinite Articles Indefinite word distinct from 'one' Nominal Categories
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41A Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-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 No gender distinctions Nominal Categories
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46A Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based Nominal Categories
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48A Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking Nominal Categories
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51A Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics Nominal Categories
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52A Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation Nominal Categories
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examples
53A Ordinal Numerals First, two, three Nominal Categories
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54A Distributive Numerals Marked by prefix Nominal Categories
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55A Numeral Classifiers Optional Nominal Categories
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57A Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes 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 Other Nominal Syntax
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examples
63A Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with' Nominal Syntax
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69A Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect prefixes 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 Singular-plural pairs, suppletion Verbal Categories
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examples
81A Order of Subject, Object and Verb No dominant order Word Order
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81B Languages with two Dominant Orders of Subject, Object, and Verb VSO or VOS Word Order
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82A Order of Subject and Verb VS Word Order
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83A Order of Object and Verb VO Word Order
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85A Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions Word Order
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86A Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive 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 Mixed Word Order
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89A Order of Numeral and Noun No dominant order Word Order
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90A Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause Word Order
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90C Postnominal relative clauses Noun-Relative clause (NRel) dominant Word Order
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91A Order of Degree Word and Adjective No dominant order Word Order
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92A Position of Polar Question Particles Initial Word Order
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93A Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase Word Order
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94A Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word Word Order
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95A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions Word Order
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96A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel Word Order
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97A Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and NAdj Word Order
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100A Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Neutral Simple Clauses
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102A Verbal Person Marking No person marking Simple Clauses
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103A Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No person marking Simple Clauses
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104A Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb 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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111A Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound Simple Clauses
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112A Negative Morphemes Negative particle Simple Clauses
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116A Polar Questions Question particle Simple Clauses
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117A Predicative Possession Locational Simple Clauses
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118A Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding Simple Clauses
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119A Nominal and Locational Predication Different Simple Clauses
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120A Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible Simple Clauses
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121A Comparative Constructions Conjoined Simple Clauses
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124A 'Want' Complement Subjects Desiderative particle Complex Sentences
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129A Hand and Arm Identical Lexicon
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examples
130A Finger and Hand Different Lexicon
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examples
142A Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Affective meanings Other
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143A Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb NegV Word Order
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143E Preverbal Negative Morphemes NegV Word Order
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143F Postverbal Negative Morphemes None 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 More than one position Word Order
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144B Position of negative words relative to beginning and end of clause and with respect to adjacency to verb Immed preverbal Word Order
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144T The Position of Negative Morphemes in Verb-Initial Languages NegVSO/NegVOS Word Order
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144V Verb-Initial with Preverbal Negative Separate word, no double negation Word&NoDoubleNeg Word Order
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144W Verb-Initial with Negative that is Immediately Postverbal or between Subject and Object None Word Order
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144X Verb-Initial with Clause-Final Negative No clause-final neg Word Order
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