1. Family: Niger-Congo
  2. Subfamily: Adamawa-Ubangi
  3. Genus: Ubangi

Sango

WALS coordinates: 5° N, 18° E

spoken in Central African Republic

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Moderately large
      Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In both plosives and fricatives
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants Implosives only
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
      Vowel Nasalization Contrast present
      Front Rounded Vowels None
      Syllable Structure Simple
      Tone Simple tone system
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants Labial-velars
      Morphology
      Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
      Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 0-1 category per word
      Locus of Marking in the Clause No 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 Strong prefixing
      Case Syncretism No case marking
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
      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 prefix
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
      The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural
      Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Binary politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
      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 Identity
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification No possessive classification
      Action Nominal Constructions Possessive-Accusative
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
      The Past Tense No past tense
      The Future Tense No inflectional future
      The Perfect No 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 Both types of system
      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 SVO
      Order of Subject and Verb SV
      Order of Object and Verb VO
      Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb VOX
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
      Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
      Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
      Position of Polar Question Particles Final
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
      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 AdjN
      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 Subject affixes on verb
      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 No reciprocals
      Passive Constructions Absent
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
      Negative Morphemes Negative particle
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Possession Conjunctional
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Gap
      'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
      'When' Clauses Balanced
      Reason Clauses Balanced
      Lexicon
      Numeral Bases Decimal
      M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
      Tea Words derived from Sinitic cha