Selknam

WALS coordinates: 53° S, 70° W

spoken in Argentina

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Selknam
Routledge:
  • Ona
Other:
  • Selknam (Central),
  • Ona-Selknam,
  • Selknam, Central,
  • Selknam, Central dialect
ISO 639-3:

Features

Feature Value References
Phonology
Consonant Inventories Average
Vowel Quality Inventories Small (2-4)
Consonant-Vowel Ratio High
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives No voicing constrast
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Other
Uvular Consonants Uvular stops only
Glottalized Consonants Ejectives only
Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
Syllable Structure Complex
Tone No tones
Absence of Common Consonants All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
Morphology
Case Syncretism No case marking
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking No subject person/number marking
Nominal Categories
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem + pronominal plural affix
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
Number of Cases Exclusively borderline case-marking
Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
Nominal Syntax
Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
Verbal Categories
The Morphological Imperative Second person number-neutral
The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
The Optative Inflectional optative absent
Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
Epistemic Possibility Affixes on verbs
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking No overlap
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 OVS
Order of Subject and Verb VS
Order of Object and Verb OV
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase OV and Postpositions
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and AdjN
Simple Clauses
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
Verbal Person Marking Only the P argument
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
Passive Constructions Absent
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
Negative Morphemes Negative auxiliary verb
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Asymmetric
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin
Predicative Possession Topic
Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
Nominal and Locational Predication Different
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
Lexicon
Hand and Arm Different
Finger and Hand Different