1. Family: Niger-Congo
  2. Subfamily: Benue-Congo
  3. Genus: Bantoid

Shona

WALS coordinates: 18° S, 31° E

spoken in Zimbabwe

Alternative Names

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

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Morphology
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strong prefixing
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders Five or more
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Non-sex-based
      Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic and formal
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural prefix
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related by gender markers
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Differentiated
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
      Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
      Nominal Syntax
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
      Verbal Categories
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect prefixes
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
      Order of Subject and Verb SV
      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 Noun-Numeral
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      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 NAdj
      Simple Clauses
      Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative affix
      Predicative Possession Conjunctional
      Predicative Adjectives Mixed
      Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Comparative Constructions Exceed
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Identical
      Finger and Hand Different